20K

John 6 

1 After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. 3 Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. 4 (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.) 5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” 6 He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.

7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!”

8 Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. 9 “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”

10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. 12 After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” 13 So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves.

"The men alone numbered about 5000."

Hmmm... so how many women were there?

I never seen a religious gather where the men outnumbered the women...

but for the sake of conversation, let's say there were as many women as men - 5000.

That's 10,000 people.

Now, you know there were kids there too.

There weren't any child care giants like Children's Friend or KinderCare.

So how many kids did these women have with them  you know the men didn't do much with kids.

I know they had lots of kids back then because birth control was pretty rudimentary.

But for the sake of conversation, let's say each woman had 2 kids with her - we know there were those who had LOTS more, & some who had less  but let's say 2 a piece.

That's 10,000 kids.

That makes the grand total 20,000 people.

How many people is that?

Have you ever watched a pro or college basketball game on TV?

Those areas usually hold close to 20,000.

And Jesus fed all those people from 5 loaves & 2 fish, & had 12 baskets of leftovers.

I went to a conference in Atlanta where there were 8000.

Chik-fil-a catered the lunch with those box lunches they sell.

They had truck loads of boxes as well as an army of people serving.

And clean up was a well oiled epic experience.

And they pulled it off in about 45 minutes.

It was a HUGE undertaking.

Jesus fed over twice as many people.

There are many, many lessons here.

Andrew said: “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”

Maybe what we could learn here is little is much when God is in it?

Just a thought...

20,000 people...