It is important to understand that if we read the Gospels as nothing more than eyewitness accounts, which they are not, or simply accounts of events in the past, then we may miss an important point. You see, if we think of this as a miracle story by Jesus, then we have to realize by virtue of the fact that this is Jesus, the Son of God doing the miracle, then the impact is farther reaching than simply what we see here. There must be a deeper meaning to this story than just the account of events. It is like, when you read a story in school and the teacher showed you that the author chose each word for a reason, so it is with this account.
First, there are some who say the miracle never happened, that what we see here is an event that John retells as a miracle story. Let us assume that to be completely incorrect and cast it away.
Second, we have to understand that this event is included in the Gospel of John, while many other events are not. So John considers this event to be significant.
Let us look at it.
We have people following Jesus who need to be fed. Jesus asks the Apostles to give them food from their own resources and they say, they cannot. We will return to this. A child comes forward with five loaves and two fish. That is significant as well. Jesus turns the child’s five loaves and two fish and feeds the entire crowd with much left over. Each element of that story has a much deeper meaning.
What is bread in the Bible? It is nourishment, but the bread that comes down from Heaven is what truly feeds the people. Jesus is the Bread of Life. In the temptation story, we see Jesus admonish the Devil that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. What is this bread? It is the word of God the wisdom that God gives to us from on high. It is symbolized in this miracle story as bread, but what John is also getting at is that Jesus is the wisdom of God and his nourishment leads us to the greatest truth.
Fish is an ancient symbol of Christ, this is because the Greek word for fish Ichthys IXϴYE is an anagram for the words Jesus Christ Son of God Savior.
So what we see also being taught here is that the people, previously described as being like sheep without a shepherd who Jesus teaches are given what the divine shepherd can give them which is divine wisdom in the person who is divine: Jesus Christ.
Now, we miss the point if we leave the story there, because, this story was also meant for us. We are also learning that God is teaching us with His Divine wisdom.
Let’s look at this truth in light of who we truly are. We look to Christ to feed us His divine wisdom which He will give us with even lots left over. Or as he says elsewhere, good measure, pressed down, shaken.
The apostles do not have the resources to do this, for they are not yet filled with this wisdom and when they are they will not teach on their own, they will teach the words of Jesus Christ. So this returns us to Jesus alone as the bread of life, as the source of the greatest nourishment which is every word from the mouth of God.
From whom is the source of wisdom: the story reflects it well: a child for unless we become like a child, we will not enter the kingdom of God.
So now we have a multitude of people seeking Christ, and from Christ they can learn the greatest truths and there is even more to learn if they seek it. It is not the apostles who have this truth it is Christ.
This leads us also the message for us. Christ feeds us in His wisdom. That wisdom is what separates us from the rest of the world. Remember what I also tell you, we do not follow a system of morality, we follow Christ who teaches us truth which we embrace, hence why we live our morality.
We are living in an exciting time but scary time. For the rest of the world, even some Christian churches, have abandoned the wisdom of Christ. We as Catholics find ourselves at odds, even with people in our own Church. However, the more we draw close to Christ, the more we will see greater truths and also find out how lost the world is. It is like the line of judgment is happening and we have been given an opportunity to see those on each side of the line. It is like Christ’s light is shining in the darkness and now we can see both those in the light and those in the darkness.
We have an opportunity few in the world have ever known, literally being able to see where Christ’s wisdom is embraced and where it is rejected. We have a great opportunity to make our own choice of which side of the line we will stand. Christ’s or the world. The more we allow ourselves to be fed by the truth of Christ, the more we will see the signs of those who embrace Him and those who rebuke Him. The urgency of not only embracing Christ but also of teaching our faith will become more and more obvious as we move along.
One of the most powerful prayers I have prayed in my priesthood is that God’s light may shine in the darkness that the darkness may be revealed. It has worked in many ways and if you really understand some of the issues that are happening then you see the same is going on.
Let me give you an example of how serious is this line. Last week, I spoke in my homily about the news story that it was found that a certain abortion provider was trafficking in fetal organs. Now whether they were profiting from this is irrelevant, the fact that they are trafficking in them and have been for some time and others are making lots of money on this trafficking is significant.
One of the ways the provider defended itself was first to not deny the trafficking was going on, although they used another name, but the other was that this was all ok because no laws were broken.
If our laws are not rooted in God’s laws then we can create some crazy laws that should be broken. So that defense is concerning. I guess it may be my baby -boomer background, but the first thing I thought of were the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
(http://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html#fYJc7tWWmLodbu0L.99) If you have the wisdom of Christ, you can see that the light is shining into the darkness and the darkness is being revealed. Something I have seen many times before is that those caught up in darkness defend themselves with words that reveal their darkness. The example I just gave is one such example. For they do not have the wisdom of God and are unable to fight against it.
You are being fed with the wisdom of God and now it is time to embrace it and ask the Lord for the ability to see better what He is showing to those He is feeding. The signs are all around you.
When we commit mortal sin, our ability to reason in God’s wisdom fails and our ability to understand things in the light of God’s truth becomes distorted. So that is what sin does to us. That is why it is so important to turn from sin. embrace the sacraments including reconciliation so that we can grow closer to Christ and become more open to His wisdom.
We are at odds with the world because we have our morality tethered to Christ He is the Word that comes from God’s mouth. He is the way, the truth and the life. All those who reject Christ are untethered and we are witnessing our nation demonstrate a nation untethered to truth.
This is why we think differently than the world and why we find ourselves living a different way of life to the world. This is why we must continue for we speak of truth tethered to He who is truth to members of our nation that is untethered as a lost balloon.
The more you embrace Christ, the more you are rooted in His way and pray daily and embrace the Eucharist you are about to receive, the more you read His word and allow it to enter into you and nourish you like bread and fish, the more you will see the world as He wants you to see it and be able to discern and understand how we should live and what we should teach our families and our neighborhoods. The more also you can see what others are teaching them now and why you need to reaffirm your baptismal commitment to Christ every day.
Christ feeds us daily with His wisdom and grace, which are available to us as freely as the bread and fish.