When Jesus Broke Himself to Feed the World
I was reading in the Book of John the other day and I came across the passage of how Jesus fed the five thousand. And while I was reading it the Lord showed me something really cool about how this event was symbolic of the Passover. Let me show you how.
Then Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat down with His disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near. Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, *said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?”
John 6:3-5 NASB1995
Here is the link between the Passover and this miracle. The time at which Jesus did this miracle was near the Passover. The scripture then says that therefore He asked Philip the question. Whenever we find a therefore in the scripture, we have to ask what it is there for. That is a line that Derek Prince used often. But continuing on with the story. We can see that Jesus performed this miracle because of the Passover coming soon. Now we know that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the Passover lamb, so we can look to see if there is any connection between this miracle and the sacrifice of Jesus.
This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do. Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little.” One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, *said to Him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus then took the loaves, and having given thanks, He distributed to those who were seated; likewise also of the fish as much as they wanted. When they were filled, He *said to His disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost.” So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.
John 6:6-13 NASB1995
Now there is a ton of numbers and there is symbology behind the numbers, but the Lord has not yet given me understanding in that. What we will look at though is that the bread and fish are respresentative of Jesus and His body. If we look at how the food was distributed, we can see that they were all sitting down when they received the food. This contrasts the manna from Heaven that the Israelites were given in the desert. The Israelites had to gather their heavenly bread, while with Jesus we are served this bread and it is not something we have to work for. When they were given the food, they ate until they were full and in the same way Jesus fills us up completely as the bread of life. When they gathered up the fragments we can see that there was still some left over, which is symbolic of the everlasting and eternal nature of Jesus’ sacrifice. And lastly, they gathered up all the remaining fragments, which were broken as Jesus’ body was, and they took them so that nothing would be lost. This is symbolic of Jesus also not being lost and has been resurrected to the Father. But this could also symbolize that nothing will be left for those who do not eat of the bread of life and the rest of Jesus will be gathered up to the believers.
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