Jesus and Passover are the focus of chapter 6. The scene now shifts to Galilee, where in the springtime festival of Passover (6:4) Jesus miraculously feeds a multitude of five thousand people. This is the only miracle of Jesus that appears in all four Gospels; it must have been deemed very important by the early church (Matt. 14:13–21; Mark 6:31–44; Luke 9:10–17). John’s Gospel follows the Synoptic account closely. But John also echoes Matthew and Mark in that the feeding miracle is followed by the story of Jesus walking on the sea (6:16–21; cf. Matt. 14:22–33; Mark 6:45–52).

But this is where the comparisons end. Two typically Johannine literary features that we have witnessed elsewhere stand out. First, the symbolic elements of the festival are emphasized in order to highlight their ch…