Book of Faith - John 6:1-21 - Feeding of the 5,000

The group commented that John's telling of this miracle was fairly straight forward as compared to some other passages of John.  The one addition to the story is the testing of Phillip.  John always has Jesus knowing what he is doing and what is going to happen.  He knows there will be a miracle and is wondering if Phillip is open to the possibility.  This raises as interesting question.  Does Jesus always know what's going to happen?  In John, it would appear so.  It's almost as though Jesus has a day planner already written by God and simply follows the script.  This raises an additional question as to how Jesus is divine and human?  The group believed that Jesus new what the broad strokes of his life were going to be.  In other words, he knew his purpose, but he did not know the details.  He could genuinely be surprised and he could change.  Both of these attributes make him human, and, for the group, did not take away from his divinity.  In the history of the church, there was a real battle between the divinity and humanity of Jesus, particularly in the early years. Each of the gospels leans one direction of the other.  The solution, captured in the creeds was to say that Jesus was fully divine and fully human.  

We also discussed the miracle itself.  One person pointed out that it was interesting that Jesus did not feed the poor as a regular part of his ministry.  Here, he feeds 5,000 pilgrims as they make their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  Our group was open to two possibilities as far as the miracle.  One possibility would be that this is simply a miracle.  By the power of God, 5 loaves and 2 fish feed everyone and there are 12 baskets of food left over.  The second possibility would be that the pilgrims already had food with them, but as Jesus called them together, divided them into groups of 50, and then offered what little he had, the pilgrims were moved to share with each other and there were still 12 baskets left over.  In either case, a miracle took place.  In fact, our group preferred the second miracle of sharing.  

The conversation this week continues on Wednesday and we encourage any and all to participate.  Each time we venture into the bible, we discover new insights for the living of our faith.  Join us!

Book of Faith - John 5:1-18 - Healing of the man at Bethzatha

This is a well known story.  Jesus finds a man, who is crippled, waiting by the pool called Bethzatha. Everyone believed that when the water in the pool was disturbed (troubled), the first person who entered the pool would be healed.  This man had waited 38 years for a miracle.  In primitive times, it was understood that a local divinity troubled the water.  Later, the local divinity was replaced by an angel.  Jesus question to the man is both curious and profound.  Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed.  The obvious answer would be "Yes", but it's not as simple as it may sound.  We don't always want to be healed.  In Dr. Phil's language, our "illness" works for us.  I may do battle with weight and say that I was to lose the added pounds, but there may also be a part of me that is afraid to lose the weight.  I may have convinced myself that if I lose the weight, all my problems will go away. My weight may serve as a way to protect me from dealing with other issues in my life.  It is very interesting that in Native American culture, if you go to the shaman to be healed, the shaman will ask two questions.  Do you wanted to be healed?  What will you do when you are healed?  Jesus asks the same questions of us.  Do we want to be healed of the brokenness in our lives?  What will we do when we are made whole?  Jesus is the one who can both heal us and lead us into a new day.

The other aspect of the story is the response to the healing by the religious authorities.  The healing takes place on the Sabbath and the authorities are upset that Jesus has the man pick up his bed and carry it. Carrying his bed would have been forbidden under Sabbath law.  Again, we are confronted with people missing the point of what has taken place.  They see the violation of the law and miss the healing.  This can happen to all of us.  We can be concerned about what someone wears to church rather than celebrating their being at church.  The truth is that we can be blind in our own ways.

Peace,

Pastor Summer