Multiplying Loaves
and Walking on Water
[Study presented at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures 2009]
No one can live unless he eats. Man seeks his food in obedience to the Creator’s command.
God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” (Genesis 1.29.)
“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.” (Genesis 9.3.)
Man’s place in creation is a paradox: he has control over nature, and yet at the same time he receives it only as a gift. Food is an experience of being dependent. We do not possess life in ourselves. We receive it in our very frail bodies. And this life grows, develops and is enriched as long as we are nourished. Without food, we waste away and die. What is true of our physical life is just as true of our life in the Spirit: we need to be nourished.
The Book of Deuteronomy says this about the wilderness wanderings, where God educated his chosen people:
“He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (Deuteronomy 8.3.)
Our lives depend less on created goods than on the Word of God. In which case, the word “life” means more than biological existence; it takes on a new dimension: it is life lived in communion with God.
In John 6, through the word “bread,” the symbolism of food picks up the threads of previous symbolisms in the fourth gospel: the wine of the wedding feast of God and his people (John 2), the gift of living water promised to the Samaritan woman (John 4). Wine, water, bread: these symbols complement one another to signify, each in its own way, the divine life that Jesus gives to the believer.
“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” (John 6.27.)
The Galileans in John 6 are to discern, beyond perishable food, another food, one that becomes eternal life.
For John, the feeding of the five thousand—the only miracle of Jesus that is recorded in all four gospels—is not just a demonstration of divine power, it is a “sign”: a symbolic action that points to a greater and more profound reality. Jesus is always trying to get us to see further than our eyes can see. If we stop at the outward aspect of this event, if we stop at the surface, we miss what is most essential.
Already in the fourth century, saint Augustine complained that readers of the gospel looked no further than the supernatural aspect of Jesus’s miracles:
Yet it is not enough to observe these things in the miracles of Christ. Let us interrogate the miracles themselves, what they tell us about Christ: for they have a tongue of their own, if they can be understood. This miracle, which we admire on the outside, has something within. We have seen, we have looked at something great, something glorious, and altogether divine, which could be performed only by God: we have praised the doer for the deed. But just as, if we were to inspect a beautiful writing somewhere, it would not suffice for us to praise the hand of the writer, because he formed the letters even, equal and elegant, if we did not also read the information he conveyed to us by those letters; so, he who merely inspects this deed may be delighted with its beauty to admire the doer: but he who understands does, as it were, read it. (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 24.2.)
The full meaning of the sign will appear only with the long discourse on the Bread of Life. However, the account of the miracle is perfectly understandable independant of the discourse and contains enough elements to discern its deeper meaning. The episode unfolds in five scenes: (1) the stage is set (verses 1-4); (2) the sign is prepared (verses 5-10); (3) the sign is performed (verses 11-13); (4) the sign is misunderstood (verses 14-15) ; (5) the sign is completed (versets 16-26).
The Stage is Set
1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. (John 6.1-2.)
The enthusiasm of the crowd is not to be confused with faith. These people are more interested in being healed than they are in knowing the mysterious Healer. In fact, they are the Galilean counterparts of the unbelieving Judeans of John 2.23-25: they have begun to believe in Jesus as the Messiah because of the signs he was doing, but they have no clue about the true meaning of the signs. They keep following Jesus to reap the benefits that his power can bring to their material life but not to their spiritual life.
Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. (John 6.3.) These geographical indications tell us more than mere places that we can locate on a map of Palestine. John writes: “Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.” Why does he say “sea” when in reality it is only a lake? It is no doubt a reference to the Red Sea. And “the other side” of the sea brings to mind the crossing of the Red Sea under the leadership of Moses, as well as the crossing of the Jordan River on dry land to enter the Promised Land.
And when Jesus goes “up the mountain,” he is like Moses who climbed Mount Sinai and who saw God and talked to him face to face. In other words, “sea” and “mountain” are not just topographical features, but clues for faith. John wants us to understand that in the person of Jesus, a new Moses is at work, the ultimate and definitive Moses. Just like Moses, Jesus crosses the water to enter the desert, goes up a mountain, has the people sit down and feeds them.
John’s remark about the time of year also has a deeper meaning. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. (John 6.4.) The mention of the Passover is more than an interesting chronological detail, its significance is clearly theological. During the ritual of the Jewish Passover feast, the head of the household takes the bread, offers a prayer of thanksgiving and distributes it to his guests. That is what Jesus will do during the Last Supper. There is no doubt that this story is meant to prefigure the Christian Passover: the Passover of the Lord during which Jesus will give his flesh as the bread of life.
The Sign is Prepared
When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” (John 6.5.) Jesus, sitting on the mountain, looks out on the approaching crowd. In John 4.5, the disciples are told to “look around you, and see” the Samaritans coming toward Jesus. Here, it is Jesus himself who looks on the crowd. Does he see in this crowd the “all people” that, when he is lifted up from the earth and seated in heaven, he will draw to himself (John 12.32)? Without any apparent reason, Jesus expresses worry about being able to find bread for all these people. In the discourse that he pronounces the next day in the synagogue of Capernaum, we learn that the bread represents the gift of his own life.
How can they find enough food for all these people? At first sight, Jesus seems to be reacting like Moses, who complained to God:
13 “Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ 14 I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.” (Numbers 11.13-14.)
In John, Jesus’s question is addressed not to God but to Philip. Implicitly, it underlines the impossibility for man to procure the “true” bread.
He said this to test him. (John 6.6.) Test him? Test him about what? About the question that keeps coming back over and over in the fourth gospel: “Where?” This question pops up all the way to the story of the Passion, where Pilate asks Jesus: “Where are you from?” (John 19.9.) Origin determines identity in John. Where a thing comes from determines what it is.
Where will the bread come from? That is the real question. At the wedding feast in Cana, no one knew where the good wine came from. At Jacob’s well, the Samaritan woman did not know where to get the living water so that she will never be thirsty again. Bread, wine, water. In each case, it is Jesus himself! What exam does Philip have to pass? It’s not a test to find out if he is resourceful enough to come up with the food, it’s to find out if he can recognize the Messiah, if he can see that Jesus himself is the Bread of Life, God’s providential salvation for men. It’s a test to see if Philip knows who his Teacher really is. “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?” (John 14.9.)
But Philip does not yet understand, no more than Andrew or the other disciples. For the time being, they remain oblivious to the real meaning of what they see in the ministry of their Master.
However, John tells us that unlike the oblivious disciples and unlike a worried and uncertain Moses, Jesus has perfect knowledge of God’s plan. He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. (John 6.6.) What did Jesus know he was going to do? We might think first off of the miracle that he was going to do, but to stop there would be to stay on the surface of the story. The miracle is only a sign which signifies a higher reality. This is what Jesus knows: For the crowd to have life, he will have to give much more than miraculous loaves of bread. He will have to give much more than the words that he received from the Father. He will have to give his very life.
Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” (John 6.7.) Six months’ wages: two hundred denarii according to the Greek text. Philip is stuck on the physical plane and starts making calculations. Doesn’t he know Scripture enough, hasn’t he been with Jesus enough to know that he should interpret his Master’s words symbolically? The prophet Isaiah had used the same symbolic language:
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isaiah 55.1.)
Behind the image of free food, God invites Israel to seek that which truly satisfies man’s hunger and gives life: his Word. By testing him with a question, Jesus wants to open Philip’s mind to what the physical bread symbolizes. The answer will be given by Peter at the end of the chapter: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6.68.)
8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” (John 6.8-9.) It is not a simple coincidence that the five loaves are made from barley: the bread of the poor. The barley loaves are a reference to the story of the prophet Elisha, who leads a group of men into the desert and feeds them miraculously with loaves of barley bread.
42 A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” 44 He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD. (2 Kings 4.42-44.)
What is going to happen in the hills surrounding the Sea of Galilee is an extension of the ancient story of Elisha. There is here not only a new Moses, there is also a new Elisha. Jesus fulfills and surpasses everything in the Law and the Prophets.
The Sign is Performed
Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. (John 6.10.) The French Hellenist Édouard Delebecque translates the beginning of the verse: “Make them sit down like at the table.” These people are being seated for a meal, sitting down or stretched out on the grass. In the Greek text of verse 11, they are called anakeimenoi: guests. Jesus is not just handing out free food, he is presiding over a communal meal, a “table community”. The kingdom of God—is often portrayed in the gospels by the image of a feast, especially a wedding feast. The Feeding of the Five Thousand will be a material prophetic acting out of the messianic feast and will prefigure, just as the Lord’s Supper will prefigure, its definitive and eternal fulfillment in heaven.
Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. (John 6.11.) By fully satisfying their hunger, Jesus is repeating what God did for his people in the wilderness. For, that is what Jesus is doing: the works of his Father.
23 Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; 24 he rained down on them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven. 25 Mortals ate of the bread of angels; he sent them food in abundance. (Psalm 74.23-25.)
The source of life that is in God passed through the hands of the man Jesus, and Jesus can have it act on the bread. He can multiply the bread instantaneously just as he multiplies the grain in the fields with the help of time, rain and sun.
When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” (John 6.12.) This instruction given to the disciples is a bit surprising. Why would Jesus be so concerned about what seems to be a minor detail? Was he really that worried about wasting good food? Actually, the existence of leftover bread is essential to the meaning of the sign and refers back to the story of Elisha: they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD (2 Kings 4.44). Rather than “fragments” (crumbs, crusts, half-eaten loaves with teeth marks all over them), the leftovers are whole loaves, whole helpings that were not used.
The key for understanding the meaning of this order is found in the verb “to not be lost.” Later, at the beginning of his discourse on the Bread of Life, Jesus draws a contrast between two types of food. “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (John 6.27.) Jesus does not perform this sign to merely satisfy the physical hunger of five thousand Galileans, but to point them to the life—divine life, eternal life—that he has come to offer. The leftover bread must not be allowed to perish, to be lost, because it symbolizes this other food that endures for life everlasting. Jesus is trying to direct their minds from the temporal to the eternal. He wants to lead them to a spiritual understanding of the sign.
The leftover bread has a second purpose: it shows the contrast between the bread that Jesus gives and the manna given to Israel in the wilderness. The Hebrews also had their fill of bread (Exodus 16.1-21), but the manna rotted if they tried to save some for the next day. The bread that Jesus gives, however, is meant to last forever.
So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. (John 6.13.) Here is the key, the one detail that stands out in all four gospel accounts. Twelve! Like the twelve sons of Jacob, the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve Apostles. In the numerical symbolism of the Bible, twelve is the number of God’s people in its totality. The miracle of the bread that satisfies the hunger of the crowd is not limited to the five thousand; there is enough left over to satisfy the spiritual hunger of all the generations to come. The bread of the Christ is meant for the whole people of God, in every time and in every place.
The meaning of this miracle is christological: it teaches us something about the identity and the work of the Christ; it is typological: it links Jesus to two “types” or prefigurations of the Old Testament: Moses and Elisha; it is eschatological: it concerns “the last days” (that is, the messianic era) since it presents Jesus as the definitive fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies and prefigures the heavenly feast; it is symbolic, for example, in its way of using numbers; and it is liturgical, it prefigures the Lord’s Supper.
The Sign is Misunderstood
There is no doubt that the crowd understands something of what has happened on the mountain: the miracle of the manna has been outdone, the miracle of Elisha as well. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” (John 6.14.) The crowd recognizes that Jesus is not simply a prophet, but the prophet, the one promised by God who would be like Moses.
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.” (Deuteronomy 18.15.)
According to popular Jewish expectation in Palestine at the time of the Roman occupation, this prophet would be the liberator of his people, just as Moses had in the past delivered the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery. His coming would usher in for Israel a new era of political supremacy over the nations and economic prosperity. Revolutionary leaders (someone counted sixty-two who appeared in New Testament times), such as Theudas and the Egyptian Jewish rebel leader mentioned in the Book of Acts, claimed to be the Prophet. Promising that they would perform miraculous signs like those of Moses, they led their followers to famous sites of Jewish history, to the Jordan or to the desert. The promised miracles materialized, but Roman troops did, and it was a massacre.
Reading the sign of the loaves according to their own human religious ideas (which John in his gospel calls the “flesh”), the crowds fail to grasp the real meaning of the miracle. What they see is a confirmation of their false, preconceived ideas about the Messiah. These Galileans are seeking themselves, not God; they are following their own messianic dreams instead of opening their minds to God’s purpose. They are seeking their own bread and not his. They want a king who will take care of them and all their material needs, especially food and health. How great it would be to have as their national leader someone invested with such powers! With Jesus leading them, they can march on Jerusalem, overthrow the Romans and establish the ultimate welfare state.
Jesus is not blind. He sees that they want in reality is a king in the human, worldly sense. When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. (John 6.15.) Jesus turns away from a glory that would turn him away from his real mission. He withdraws, alone, to the mountain, in order to pray according to Matthew and Luke, to be with the One from whom he receives true glory. He resists the temptation of power, as he did during the forty days of testing in the desert at the beginning of his ministry.
What started out as a great celebration ends up as a great disappointment. The sign was clear, and yet the people, and the disciples as well, manage to misunderstand its meaning. They have not yet understood that Jesus is not some Jewish military hero, but the Bread of Life. And then night falls. Jesus remains alone with his Father. The crowds are left standing where they are; the disciples are left with no answer to the question “Where did he go?” They remain, symbolically as well as literally, in the dark. And then night falls.
Jesus did not come to satisfy our every desire and whim. We cannot manipulate or use him as a means to obtain our own self-centered ends: a miracle solution to our problems of health, money, self-esteem. We do not come to the Christ imposing our conditions on him: he must heal our broken relationships, give us success in our life and make sure we are materially and psychologically comfortable. We come to him on his conditions to receive the one and only thing that is worth seeking: himself.
The gift of God surpasses all the expectations and dreams of men. Not only does his gift surpass them, but it challenges and contests them. Jesus call us ceaselessly to go beyond our own desires. God gives without measure because he loves us without measure. What does love without measure mean? It means giving not just things but giving yourself. Jesus gives himself, fully and wholly, to us. He loves us without measure so that we can learn to love God and others without measure.
The sign is completed
The sign of Jesus feeding the five thousand is completed by a second sign: Jesus walking on the water. Together, these two scenes form a diptych (a double-panelled painting) depicting in advance the destiny of the Messiah and setting the stage for the great discourse on the Bread of Life. Unlike the parallel passages of Matthew and Mark, John’s account is less a miraculous rescue than a sign. Like all the signs, this one draws its meaning from Old Testament symbolism and prefigures a greater reality yet to come; it directs our attention to both the past and the future.
The account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand concluded with Jesus withdrawing to the mountain. Up until then, the disciples had been with him facing the crowd. Now, they part company. While Jesus goes up the mountain, they go down to the sea. 16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. (John 6.16-17.)
After waiting for Jesus in vain, the disciples sail for Capernaum, the town where Jesus had a house. Why did they leave without him? According to Matthew (14.22) and Mark (6.45), Jesus forced them to leave without him.
Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. (Matthew 14.22.)
The disciples are left on their own in the dark. The “evening” of verse 16 becomes the “dark” of verse 17. The Greek word scotia refers to the darkness that could not overcome the light of the Logos (John 1.5), but which continues to threaten to overtake men (John 12.35); this darkness does not envelop those who believe on Jesus (John 8.12; 12.46). In this passage, physical darkness is the image of the inner darkness that surrounds the disciples separated from their Master. It is nighttime because Jesus is not there! The disciples do not know where he is nor who he is. They are completely in the dark.
Who would have ever imagined, upon seeing the apostles head out to sea on the direct command of Jesus, that it was to head straight into a storm? And yet that is exactly where Jesus sent them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat. (John 6.18-19.)
In biblical imagery (Psalm 107.23-30), storms underline the dread that the Hebrews had always felt toward the sea. Even though the Creator had enclosed the waters within fixed limits, the sea remains in the Bible the domain and the symbol of the evil powers that oppose God, in particular death. In Jewish thought, the Abyss is a close cousin of Sheol. To fulfill his purposes in the world, God triumphs over the sea. A good number of psalms celebrate the power of Yahveh over the great waters.
The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over mighty waters. (Psalm 29.3.)
You silence the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples. (Psalm 65.7.)
You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them. (Psalm 85.9.)
3 The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring.
4 More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the LORD! (Psalm 93.3-4.)
The Old Testament records no incident of a human being walking on the sea. However, of God himself it is written:
… who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea (Job 9.8).
Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen. (Psalm 77.19.)
God alone rules over the sea and walks on the waves.
So, here we have darkness, the absence of Jesus, the strong wind stirring up the sea, the disciples struggling to row against the wind; and they were terrified (John 6.19). It is not the storm that terrifies them. Aboard the boat are at least four professional fishermen, the two pairs of brothers: Andrew and Peter, James and John. They have seen this kind of storm before. However, this is the first time they have ever seen a human form walking on the water.
49 But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; 50 for they all saw him and were terrified. (Mark 6.49-50.)
But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” (John 6.20.) Jesus dispels their fear, as God does in the Old Testament.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you… 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. (Isaiah 43.2-3.)
Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going. (John 6.21.) The verb lambano, which can mean either “receive” or “take” usually has a positive meaning in the fourth gospel. People receive the Logos (1.12), Jesus (5.43), his witness (3.11, 32; 12.48; 17.8), his envoys (13.20), God himself (13.20). The word becomes almost a synonym of “believe.” It is at the very instant that the disciples are ready to receive Jesus that they reach their destination, safe and sound. Here they are, “brought to their desired haven” (Psalm 107.30). This sign teaches the fundamental necessity of Jesus’s presence. The absence of Jesus spells catastrophe. The presence of Jesus spells peace. We have reached the safe haven. We have arrived.
For John, the miracle of walking on the water is above all a sign: it points to a much greater reality. What is this greater reality? Into which “mystery of the kingdom” (Luke 8.10) does Jesus want to initiate the disciples? In this episode, John sees a prefiguration of the great storm of Jesus’s passion: the great tempest that will threaten to engulf the disciples apparently left to themselves and wavering in their faith. How could we not see in this nighttime drama the disciples left alone huddled in fear after Jesus’s death?
There is a deeper meaning to what Jesus does in this chapter: he is deliberately staging a symbolic rehearsal of his Hour (his death, resurrection and ascension). Let’s run through it again. Jesus comes down from the mountain to provide for the needs of a whole people: he gives a miraculous bread which represents his body given in sacrifice.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6.51.)
He withdraws from the multitudes wandering around and completely lost in their dreams of a political Messiah, and he goes back up to the place from which he came: a clear allusion to his ascension to heaven to reign over the universe. “Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” (John 6.62.)
In the meantime, Jesus sends his disciples on a mission without his physical presence.
“And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.” (John 17.11.)
“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17.18.)
The world where Jesus is sending his disciples will be hostile to them, like the contrary winds of the sea. “In the world you face persecution.” (John 16.33.) But Jesus will not leave them alone, he will come to them, treading on the Abyss, trampling the waters of death, to bring them peace.
18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” (John 14.18-19.)
“But take courage; I have conquered the world!” (John 16.33.)
The coming of the resurrected Christ will bring them peace, because they will finally have understood who he really is and what is the real nature of the deliverance he brings and of the kingdom he came to establish. “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14.20.) Jesus will be there with them. They will not see him physically, but they will know he is there by his Spirit. (That is our case today in the tempest of our own times!)
But they are not there yet. It is true that in Matthew’s account, Jesus’s walk on the water elicits from the disciples a sort of confession of faith. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14.33.) They begin to suspect that Jesus is the Messiah. But, it is clear that their idea of the Messiah is not much different than the nationalistic dreams of the crowd. In reality, they do not yet grasp the real identity and the real mission of their Master. The gospel of Mark is much franker.
51 Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52 for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. (Mark 6.51-52.)
Notice that in John 21, the seven disciples who are on the shore of this same Sea of Tiberias will no longer have to ask who Jesus is. Because by then, the will know who he really is. Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. (John 21.12.) How will they know that Jesus is the Lord and not just a human Messiah come to establish on earth some kind of revived Jewish empire? They will know it because the crucified, risen and ascended Christ will have come to them to explain, in the Holy Spirit and using the Old Testament scriptures, the Purpose of God, and they will have accepted his teaching.
Christian tradition has always seen the disciples’ boat as a figure of the Church. Augustine writes:
For that ship prefigured the Church while He is on high. … As the end of the world approaches, errors increase, terrors multiply, iniquity increases, infidelity increases; …. Darkness increases, and Jesus is not yet come. These are the waves that agitate the ship; the storms and the winds are the clamors of revilers. (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 25.5.)
We should find great encouragement today from the account of this sign, because our situation is a lot like that of the disciples. We live in a society that is fundamentally opposed to the things of God. We are surrounded by forces which work to prevent us from reaching our destination. Our culture “becomes rough,” like the Sea of Galilee, and it seems the harder we row, the faster we go nowhere.
In the midst of this storm, John reminds us that nothing can keep the Christ from getting us home, his home, the place where he has a house. He who has authority over the winds and the waves is more than capable of getting us across the stormy sea. But there is a condition: that we accept to take him into the boat with us.
The story does not end with the disciples landing at Capernaum, because it is also the story about the crowd to which Jesus had given bread. This crowd persists in its quest of a leader capable of fulfilling their human, earthy, carnal dreams.
22 The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Then some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” (John 6.22-26.)
Their question expresses more than mere surprise. We can read in it the same possessive attitude which tried to take Jesus by force and make him king. They cannot let a man with such miraculous power get away. They want to keep him close to make sure he keeps supplying them with free bread. Notice that Jesus doesn’t answer their question. On the contrary, he reverses the roles. He becomes himself the interrogator and turns the discussion to the real problem: the state of their own hearts, their distorted, fleshly, self-centered, nationalistic hopes. That’s what keeps them going: false dreams. What keeps us going?
Jesus comes to us and offers us himself, the bread of eternal life. The problem is that our heart is too small for him. We don’t aim that high. We don’t demand that much. We would gladly settle for a Changer of water into wine, a Provider of magic water, a Multiplier of free loaves, a Calmer of storms: someone to ensure our material and psychological comfort. We would even settle for a religious good luck charm, a plastic Jesus to hang on the rearview mirror. But Jesus offers us infinitely more that what we think we want. He wants us to want more than we want so that we will want what he wants to give us.
“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (John 6.27.)