Jesus Feeds the Multitudes, Part 1

Now this morning, we’re going to go back to the gospel of John that we left a long time ago, it seems, and pick it up where we left off in chapter 6…the Gospel of John chapter 6, which takes us, as you probably know, to one of the most familiar stories in all the Bible, what is called the feeding of the five thousand. This is a story that may have been one of the first stories you ever heard in Sunday School when you were a little child. It seems as though everybody knows this story, people who have been in the church and out of the church. And there’s a reason for that. Of all the miracles that Jesus ever did, this is the most massive miracle in sheer number. When you add up everybody, five thousand men, plus women and children, Matthew adds, you’ve got between twenty and twenty-five thousand people and He creates a meal for them. And they’re not really spectators of the miracle, they’re participants in the miracle because they eat the meal. So this is a very intimate experience. There’s no other miracle that Jesus did that involves so many people. The closest one would be a subsequent feeding of four thousand which He did a little later in the area of Decapolis on the east side also of the Sea of Galilee. But the massive nature of this miracle makes it remarkable and that’s why all four gospels included. It’s the only miracle other than his own resurrection recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. . . .

http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/43-32