Toward Good Friday, through daily Gospel Readings, we have followed how religious leaders’ reactions to Jesus’ performing a miraculous sign, healing a man paralyzed for 38 years, by the Sheep Gate, near Bethesda, in Jerusalem from John 5 on to John 19. And, we have read John 20-21 on how the disciples struggled to come to terms with Jesus’ Resurrection upon Paschal Sunday. Because religious leaders reacted to Jesus’ third miraculous sign, performed to the paralytic man, in wrong ways, Jesus began being accused as possessed and blasphemous, leading to have him killed. And, after his Resurrection, even his own disciples took him wrong, as a gardener or even a ghost.
Why is it so difficult to get right in recognizing
Jesus for his great signs and his Resurrection?
Reviewing from John 5 to John 21, we certainly have
a tendency to be fascinated by what Jesus has done, the signs that he had
performed, and what happened to him – the Resurrection. But, why is it so
difficult for us to see all these facts about Jesus right?
With this in mind, we read and reflect today’s
Gospel Reading (John 6:1-15). Otherwise, we might just get caught in our
amazement of the fourth great miracle that Jesus performed – feeding the great
multitudes near the Sea of Tiberius (Sea of Galilee), just as the most people
who benefited from this miracle and those who witnessed.
Jesus was back in Galilee, after spending some time
for the feast of Shavuot in Jerusalem, healing a paralyzed man and being blamed
for performing a healing work on Sabbath and being accused for blasphemy for
justifying his work as an extension of the work of the Father.
It near the feast of Passover, a great crowd
followed Jesus, because they had seen the great signs that he had performed
(John 6:2), referring to turning water into wine in Cana, the first sign (John
2:1-11) and healing the son of the Herod’s royal official in Capernaum from
Cana, the second sign (John 4:43-54). Through these signs, back in Galilee,
more and more people came to and followed Jesus.
Jesus saw the crowd following him. So, he asked Philipp
where he could buy enough food to feed the crowd (John 6:5).
If you happened to be in Philipp’s place and Jesus
had asked you the same question, how would you respond?
Unbeknownst to Philipp, Jesus was testing him (John
6:6), perhaps, to see if he would think like typical human or he would mention
Jesus’ power to demonstrate his ability to think outside “human” box.
Why so?
Because, as a disciple, accompanying Jesus, Philipp
had already witnessed at least three great signs performed by Jesus, two in
Galilee and one in Jerusalem. The first one was performed in Cana, turning
water into wine (John 2:1-11), the second one was also in Cana to heal the son
of Herod’s royal official in Capernaum (John 4:46-54), and healing a paralytic
man by the Sheep Gate of the Temple in Jerusalem (John 5:1-9). So, Jesus tested
to see if Philipp would seek a solution to this conundrum of feeding the great
crowd out of what he could buy from a store.
Perhaps, Philipp was caught in the where-to-buy
phrase. This is like a tricky math question.
Well, Philipp did not pass this “exam” question,
given by Jesus. His answer was an excellent arithmetic for accounting. Philipp
did a quick calculation on the cost estimate (John 6:7). But, Jesus did not
need an accountant for deciding how to feed the crowd.
Then, Andrew reported Jesus about a boy with five
loaves of bread and two fish, adding his skepticism – how he could feed a large
crowd out of such a scanty amount of food (John 6:9).
His doubt about the possibility to feed the crowd
out of the five loaves and two fish also reflects that Andrew’s thinking was
also of typical human, like Philipp’s.
Upon having the crowd seated, Jesus took the loaves,
gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much
of the fish as they wanted (John 6:11). And, the multiplication of the loaves
and fish that Jesus performed to feed the crowd yielded far more amount than what
they could eat. So, Jesus ordered the disciples to collect bread fragments, and
this leftover collection filled twelve wicker baskets (John 6:12-13).
So, with this fourth sign that he performed to feed the crowd out of the five loaves and two fish, people began to recognize Jesus as the prophet, who is to come, as prophesized in Malachi 3:1, and a political king.
“This is truly
the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world”(John 6:14), said those
who witnessed the fourth miraculous sign that Jesus had performed. But, Jesus
sensed that they would make him king, and therefore, withdrew himself from them
(John 6:15).
People took Jesus’ third great sign in a wrong way,
as the way they recognized and interpreted the sign prompted them to make Jesus
king.
Did Jesus perform the sign in order to persuade
people to make him king?
No.
Jesus made signs so that people may believe him (John
4:48) – not as political king but the prophesized Messiah.
After this great miracle, those who were benefitted
kept chasing Jesus. So, later, Jesus said:
Amen,
amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but
because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give
you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal
(John 6:26-27).
Basically, though they were amazed that Jesus fed
them out of a scanty amount of food: five loaves of bread and two fish, they
really missed the mark in recognizing why Jesus fed them as a great sign. For
this reason, Jesus had to give the discourse on the Living Bread of Life (John
6:32-59).
God the Father did not send His only begotten Son to
keep feeding our stomachs. Our God is not a god of stomach (cf. Philippians 3;19).
He is for us to have eternal life. And, this is reflected in the Living Bread
of Life discourse, given by Jesus, as a follow-up to this miracle so that these
people would recognize the miracle correctly.
But, did they really get it right – recognizer Jesus
as they should?
You can see from the way they reacted to Jesus’
Living Bread of Life discourse (John 6:60-71).
One important lesson here:
People, as well as the disciples, failed to
recognize who Jesus is and his signs, and his Resurrection, because of their typical
human cognitive biases. Because of the biases, they saw Jesus in their human
minds’ cognitive filter. Their human minds tried to put Jesus and all the great
phenomenon associated with him, including the signs and the Resurrection, in
the cognitive boxes created by their minds. If they did not fit in these boxes
of their human minds, they either rejected him, or accused him for being
possessed or blasphemous, or forging him to fit in the boxes, as some people
tried to make him king to fit him in their minds’ box.
Does your mind tend to put Jesus in a cognitive box
that its bias creates?
Those who obstinately failed to recognize Jesus and
rejected him and killed him have been trying to silence his disciples, as we
see in Acts 5:12-42. Had they been able to recognize Jesus rightfully, then,
they would not have accused Jesus for blasphemy and had him killed. Had they
learned a lesson and converted afterward, they would have tried to silence the
disciples, now being sent to replicate the works of Jesus.
In today’s First Reading (Acts 5:34-42), we see
Gamaliel standing out of the rest of the Sanhedrin members in regard to their reaction
to the apostles’ teachings and works of Jesus.
Gamaliel did not react hastily out of his own assumption
with his cognitive bias, while his colleagues on the Sanhedrin council did.
Rather, he let God to judge if the apostles are with God or not. And, at the
Sanhedrin, he called his colleagues not to do anything to the apostles out of
what their human minds dictate.
We tend to bring our own human mind’s measures, as
well as cognitive biases, even to Jesus and his teaching, which was carried out
by his disciples. This contributes to a host of problems we have in
Christianity. While some are trying to forge Christianity into their minds’
cognitive boxes, others are struggling to come to terms with the authentic
Christianity. One thing we may learn from Gamaliel, a great teacher of the
Torah, who taught Paul (Acts 22:3), is to let God help us, rather than letting
our own minds struggle and fight. So, we need to pray genuinely, letting the Holy
Spirit work on us, especially with the gift of discernment, as well as the gift
of wisdom.
Perhaps, our human mind is devil’s favorite object
to manipulate in order to confuse us and misinterpret the signs and teaching of
Jesus so that we may reject him. The only way to overcome this problem is the Holy
Spirit. That is why Jesus wants us to be born from above (John 3:3) and of the
Holy Spirit sent on us from above (John 3:5), as taught to Nicodemus.
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