John 6:8-10 One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?” Then Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.

In verse 4 when John says there was a multitude, it seems he understated the size of this crowd. About 5000 was the number of men. Counting the women and children, there would have been many more, possibly twice that number. Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks and distributed them to the disciples and the disciples to those sitting down. Then Jesus took the fish and did the same. When the crowd was filled, Jesus told His disciples to gather up all the fragments so that nothing is lost, which they did and they filled twelve baskets with what remained. Now, there are a few things I’d like us to look at regarding the miraculous feeding of this multitude. First, there is a miracle here that we all tend to miss and that is that more than 5000 people can get together and only one person brought food. I think it’s a good reminder to us that when we come to Jesus, we bring nothing to the table. There is nothing about us that is desirable and there is no good work that we’ve done that overshadows the bad things we’ve done … on the scale, our bad will always outweigh our good. But Jesus receives us as we come to Him and then He gives to us out of the abundance of His own righteousness. Repentance is a function of salvation and without Jesus there is no possible way we can turn from our sins. Next, just as Jesus gave thanks for the few fish and loaves, we also should give thanks for what we have. Often, the floodgates of blessing from God are kept closed by our own lack of thankfulness for what we have already been given. The greatest provision we have is Jesus and through Jesus, and if we are not thankful in that, then it may be that God will strip away those things that distract us from being content and thankful in Christ.