Get this: Loaves and Fishes = Jesus' life!

In the story of the loaves and fishes feeding the 5,000 (John Chapter 6), it's often resolved that the story is about how God can take something small and multiply it if it's freely offered.

That's true, but I also believe a few other things are important. First, the fact that people needed to be sat down before the food was to be passed... this required an amount of faith -- or at least cooperation.

It also put everyone on the same level, unable to fully see what was happening in the baskets. Each person had an experience reaching into the baskets and pulling out bread and fish. It was an individual experience, shared by many. Each person had to take the action of reaching to grab some food, which everyone to some degree must have thought foolish.

But the fact was that the multitude had gathered in pursuit of God through Jesus, and He wasn't going to let those people's needs go unmet. And He wasn't going to let the needs of the flesh distract them from the words of life.

The Word makes special note that Passover was near -- and I wonder why. Is that relevant? Is it because it shows a contrast between God the Passover protector and God the Passover lamb?

This experience eventually leads to where Jesus explains that people must consume Him to find life. By being filled with the bread of life -- the Word of Him who was sent -- and drinking, being filled with the blood of the Passover lamb, eternal life is possible. People thought He was being a cannibal or something, and got freaked out, but what they didn't understand was the fact that Jesus HAD to die, and that His sacrifice of body and blood was what was to be consumed. It was a gift that appeared small -- ONE life, but in God's hands (like the loaves/fishes), proved to more than fill very soul, with "food" flowing over -- endlessly!

Accepting Jesus' sacrifice is much like eating the bread and fish -- we must have faith in what we don't see to give us nourishment. We must be in a position to receive Him, and then do so on an individual level, while experiencing Him together. His food never runs out!