The first of Jesus’ “I AM” statements is in John 6:35 – “I am the Bread of Life”.

John begins chapter 6 with the words “After this . . .” which would seem to indicate a rapid succession of time. But in reality, several months have passed since the account of John 5, perhaps even a year, if the feast mentioned John 5:1 is taken as Passover. If it were the Feast of Booths (aka The Feast of Tabernacles), chapter 6 occurs 6 months after chapter 5. John often uses the various Jewish feasts as his timeline marks. It is now close to Passover (John 6:4) and this would be the Passover before Jesus’ crucifixion, so this marks His last year of earthly ministry. If Jesus was crucified in 33 AD (I’ll talk about the evidence for this in a forthcoming post), then this would be April 32 A.D. John doesn’t tell us what happened between chapters 5 and 6, perhaps because the other Gospel writers do.

Jesus preaches in Nazareth and is rejected in His own town (Mark 6:1-5), and continues on to other nearby villages in Galilee (Mark 6:6). He then sends out the disciples in pairs to preach repentance, cast out demons and heal the sick (Mark 6:7-14). During this time, Jesus continues preaching Himself. While the disciples are out on their mission, Herod Antipas has John the Baptist beheaded, fulfilling the wish of his Herodias and her daughter with the preacher’s head served on a silver platter (Mark 6:14-29). The disciples return and tell Jesus about their experiences and apparently also about the news of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:13).

And so Jesus tells his disciples, “Let’s go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.” It was likely meant to be a retreat to debrief, to reflect, and to pray and worship. Mark tells that they left quietly and privately, but the paparazzi were watching (because of the miraculous signs that Jesus had been performing) and soon a crowd runs along the shoreline and races to meet Jesus at the opposite side (probably not too far from Bethsaida.) I suspect the crowd grew and grew like a snowball gathering steam as those who saw a group running to see something quickly joined in. There was not time to gather provisions for the journey – the sense was probably join in or miss out on something to behold.

When Jesus and the disciples get to the shore, they see the large crowd coming. If I were one of the disciples, I’d have felt disappointment and frustration. This was to be their private time with Jesus. But note the Lord’s response. Luke 9:11 tells us that Jesus “welcomed” the crowd and Mark 6:34 says that Jesus had “compassion on them because they were like a sheep without a shepherd.” (Perhaps many had been followers of John the Baptist?). Jesus teaches the crowd many things and heals the sick. The word ‘welcomed” in the Greek text is ἀποδέχομαι (apodechomai). Dr. Luke is the only NT author to use the word – here in his gospel as well as his Acts of the Apostles. It means to receive kindly and gratefully; to heartily embrace.

And here is our first application from the story. How do we deal with a loss of our plans? Jesus saw opportunities to minister. Interruptions were nothing less than divine appointments to Him. He responded to the initiative of others, lest their initiative turn to a sense of futility and hindrance. Jesus didn’t begrudgingly give in to the presence of the crowd, he heartily embraced them and received them kindly and gratefully. Matthew relates the story of Jairus, whose daughter was near death, coming to whisk Jesus to his home that He might heal her. But along the way, a woman touches his garment in faith that she too might be healed and Jesus stops to minister to her. This interruption must have resulted in much anxiety for Jairus and perhaps was the factor in being too late … the girl died before Jesus could get to her. But the interruption was nothing less than a divine appointment. For not only did Jesus heal the hemorrhaging woman, the delay results in a miracle greater than healing as Jesus restores the dead girl to life! (Mark 5:21–43). I suspect that Jesus was using the opportunity to teach the disciples to distinguish between their plans and those of God and to hold their own very loosely in favor of His as they are about to witness a great miracle . . . the Bread of Life is found at the Lord’s table, not our own.