Why?
by Debbonnaire Kovacs
John 6:1-15
I’m running. My bag is bumping against my side and I’m getting a little out of breath, but I don’t care. I want to be in the front, where I can see. There’s a jillion people! More people than I’ve ever seen in one place before, even when Abba took me to Jerusalem for the Feast. Seems like the world is made up of legs and elbows and walking sticks. But I’m small, and I can duck under and dash around and wiggle between, and pretty soon—here I am!
That’s more like it. There’s Jesus and those men who always surround him wherever he goes. He’s sitting down! Shh! Hurry up and be quiet, everybody! He’s sitting down like the teachers do, and I bet he’s gonna say something awesome!
—-
Hours and hours have passed. Jesus’ stories are way cool, but I’m starved. Guess it’s a good thing, after all, that Mom made me bring this bag of food.
What? Me? Oh! Jesus is saying the people are hungry and they need food. Well, I guess I could share. One of the men, I heard Jesus call him Andrew, points to me. I stand up respectfully and bob my head. “Five, sir, and two salt fish, also.”
He smiled! He smiled right at me! Did you see that? I’m not so hungry. There are people hungrier, I guess. Mom will make more.
Jesus holds up my bread, like Abba does when he’s going to say the blessing. I bow my head and whisper it with him. Baruch Ata, Adonai Eloheinu, melech ha’olam, hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.
When I open my eyes, I close them again, and rub them, and blink a few times, but the men are still passing out my bread. My bread, that Mom made this morning. I watched her do it, and it was the same old ordinary flour and oil and salt and a little water! Bread and bread and more bread! Fish, too! There were only two, I swear!
Hands all around me, reaching. I’m standing here with my mouth open and forgetting to get any, so I grab some on the way by, but I just stare at it, at first. Then I taste it cautiously. It just tastes like Mom’s bread. Good. Maybe fresher, not like it rode around in my bag all day. And still Jesus and his friends are passing it around. I can’t believe it!
—-
Leftovers. Can you believe it? Twelve baskets of leftovers, big ones, too! I’m taking some home to Mom. She’ll never believe this!
But here’s the weirdest thing of all. Everybody got so excited, they were going to make Jesus king. I would love that! Don’t you think he’d make the most awesome king ever? And not just because he could magically make food to feed armies, either. I heard some men talking about that. Dumb. He’d be a cool king because. . . well, just because! I never met a real king, but I don’t think there’s ever been one as good as Jesus would be.
But. . . he ran away. I don’t get it. Just kind of disappeared. I waited and waited, but his friends finally got in their boat and left.
Why did he run away? Doesn’t he want to be king?
Why?
God Bless you Debbonnaire. I've been preacing a sermon I call, "Searching for a Free Lunch" and I"ve asked that question every time. After all, Jesus started it! He asks Philips in John 6 where they might buy bread to feed so many, as the mulititude was gathering, and then the text says, "knowing what He was going to do." So later, when He feed them, they recognized Him as "that prophet" (Deut 18:15) and went to lay hands on Him to make Hm king. Jesus throws the bait out there, knowing they would respond like they did and then He ducks into the surrounding hills…makes no sense…on the surface. Here's a clue for those who are joining the conversation. Remember why Jesus taught in parables? See the parables of the sower (Matt 13:18ff) and then look at verse 36.
One way to think of it is that Jesus provoked the response so that for the true seekers there would be a moment of teachability. Some time needed to pass, but that moment came and John 6:26-27 was the seed he planted. Some of what followed was more than most of them could deal with and the crowd drifted away. But, probably many of them remembered his message which is very reminiscent of what he said to the woman at the well.
Interesting fairy tale. Or was it from a version of the Bible with which I'm not familiar? Or maybe one of the apocryphal gospels?
Jean,
I think the audience here understands this is a speculative expansion of the story. It is a common tool used to bring familiar Bible stories to life. I have heard this technique used in hundreds of sermons even by very conservative Adventist preachers. I am sure the technique could be used inappropriately if the speculations changed the message, but I see absolutely no harm in this expansion.
Personally I think it is very good for us to imagine ourselves in Jesus' audience in very realistic ways. There is a reason Jesus taught in stories instead of theological lectures. Maybe you could set aside your sarcastic attitude and tell us what you think the harm is in the story. That would be a much more appropriate way to share your opinion. And we would respect you more if you seemed to understand that is all any of us have to share.
I question the use of fictional embellishments to the gospel stories, particulary with children. They have a harder time discerning between fact and fiction. It's one thing to simplify the stories for children, or people not familiar with Scripture, but I'm not sue it's wise to weave in various imagined scenarios. If the Bible isn't interesting enough on its own, the problem isn't with the Bible, its with the reader.
Jean,
I don't think you're familiar with that story. It's a different genre than the literal reading of the Bible. Imagination and fiction are sinful so better not go there.
It seems to me that there is value in this essay because it takes a situation with which all Bible readers and adventist children are familiar, and expresses in contemporary language, the imagined perspective of a different individual than that with which we are familiar. Developing the ability to imagine how a situation may look from someone else's viewpoint is quite important in the developing cognitive capacity for moral awareness–as in giving due consideration to others and treating others as we wish to be treated.
"I question the use of fictional embellishments to the gospel stories, particulary with children. They have a harder time discerning between fact and fiction."
Yes, just like that devlish author C. S. Lewis, who wrote that truly evil and dangerous series of books the Narnia Series – you might have heard of them? Or how about Vegie Tales, a popular children's cartoon, where they tell Bible stories with talking vegetables. Or how about the Uncle Authur children's Bible stories, which I recall are indeed fictional embelishments of Bible stories, not verbatum renditions. Or how about Jesus Christ Himself, who frequently used fictional parables to get points across.
Please Jean, your attitude is everything that is wrong with much of Christianity. How do you think Jesus would approach such an attitude? The story in John 12 and Luke 7 might give us a glimpse.
Jean, I am not trying to be harsh, but your own thoughtless and insensitive words to Debbonnaire are the sorts of things that really hurt people, and make people lose their faith. I have seen it happen many times before, as I assume many others have. I suggest you have a read in James 3, as I assume you have not written it for a while.
I have no problem with parables, stories that illustrate Biblical truth, and so on. But the Biblical narratives are complete in themselves. They may need explaining at times, but they don't need embellishments. All the embellishments and addendum that we may offer only detract from the story–in my humble opinion.
I wasn't trying to insult anyone. I didn't even know who wrote it (no name at the top). I wasn't criticizing her or attacking her character. I just disagree with the approach. Does that make me insensitive? How about the insensitivity of those who continually ridicule those of us who refuse to cave into the evolutionary fairy tale promoted by most of those who post here? If I were that bothered by it, I wouldn't bother to read or post here. If disagreement is interpreted as insensitivity, and one's faith is dependent upon never having to be disagreed with, one has to wonder in what that faith has been placed.
Whether or not the Chronicles of Narnia have value, or not, they were written to illustrate (if only in a crude sort of way) the gospel; they made no pretense of being the story. It wasn't Jesus and the 12 disciples who went through the wardrobe and defeated the White Witch. In fact, someone unfamiliar with the Sciptures (like maybe a Buddhist), upon reading the stories, would certainly get a sense of the difference between good and evil, but I'm not sure he'd associate it with the Bible.
Jean,
There is a difference in defending a different or alternative point of view and always insisting you are right and everybody is not only wrong, but damnable. As I said as plainly as I could, your objection stated with your reasoning would be welcome. But, what you offer doesn't usually sound like what most people would call "humble opinions". I can't read your mind, but when I analyze what you say it doesn't seem you give much respect for other people's opinions and don't pay very much attention to the reasoning they share that is the basis of those opinions.
Opinions can be little more than opinions or they can reflect one's best effort to reason out the truth. What I think we ought to be doing here is sharing our best effort at discovering and knowing truth. Your sarcastic, judgmental, and harsh statements appear to scream what is wrong with all you stupid people." You don't need to be timid or lack conviction, just willing to truly weigh the evidence and honestly accept someone may have a better grasp on the truth than you.
From Uncle Arthur Maxwell’s Bible Stories, Vol 8, page 41, that bastion of Adventist Christian education, describing the same Gospel story:
‘One morning Ben had been down to the lake with his fishing pole and caught two little fish.
“Look, Mother!” he cried as he rushed into the kitchen, “See what I caught!”
Mother looked and smiled. “They’re not very big, are they?” she said. “What are you going to do with them?”
… “Oh, I going to listen to Jesus again. He’s wonderful. You should go and hear Him too. Could I have three or four of the little barely loves, Mother?”
… Hour after hour slipped by, and still He talked. And still the people listened. They were so interested that they forgot all about eating. Ben even forgot to eat his lunch.
… Ben heard them talking and wondered what it was all about. It could that Jesus was hungry; and no wonder, after talking all day. Then he thought about his lunch.
… And now Ben was handling his lunch to Jesus; and Jesus was smiling at him and saying, “Thank you Ben; thank you very much.”’
Jean, you got a problem with Uncle Arthur Maxwell’s Bible Stories for children? It is likewise clearly an embellishment, because I certainly don’t see any reference to a child called Ben in the Gospel, do you? If you do have a problem with Uncle Arthur’s stories, then, well, that probably says exactly what type of person you are.
His books contain a lot of good stories, but Uncle Arthur isn't my example; Jesus is. I've never read the story you referenced, but I had been the editor of the book, I would have left it out. So I guess that says exactly what type of person I am. I keep my horns hidden, though.
Jean if you were the editor of this stallwart R&H Adventist publication, it appears there wouldn't be any stories, because they are all like the one about 'Ben' and Jesus – embellishments of Bible stories for children. You must be a bundle of joy to be around, not even allowing Uncle Arthur! I know people in the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement, who are like the Sevy-Taliban, and even they know and love Uncle Arthur – it about the only form of fiction they do allow for their children.
"Uncle Arthur" was quite a guy. He had a good sense of humor. Not everyone does. Too bad.
"Uncle Arthur" was also first Adventist (other than EGW) to make a lot money from his books. There is some reason to think that he grossed over a $1 million US ons them–when a million dollars was a lot of money. I, for one, do not think that there is any problem with that, but it is helpful to contrast that with what Adventist publishing houses pay other people for writing for them — even today.
Ervin, I'm sure you remember the 1959 Cadillacs. Ginormous fins. Others will remember these too. How well I remember when Uncle Arthur drove into the "College Service" Chevron station in Angwin, driving his taupe colored '59 Caddy sedan. I was nearly speechless as I went to the window to ask how I might serve him–not because I was so star-struck over him, as because, there in the passenger side was Graham's lovely daughter, Lorna! Anyway, Uncle Arthur quickly put me at ease by requesting "Give me some of your most holy gas for my most holy car!" Of course, that huge and luxurious vehicle required the highest of high-test fuel….
I never really held this against Uncle Arthur. He could afford the car, and I was actually pretty used to SDA physicians driving such cars–and had often received rides in them. I had grown up on the Bedtime Stories, which were quite good, and had then sold The Bible Story door-to-door (at the same time as Little Richard was doing so). The place where it felt a little strange was when we were authorized to accept a book of Green Stamps as a down payment on a set of books to ensure that they got into the hands of people who could not afford to make the payments on the books–while putting the hard sell on the people by suggesting that buying the books might well keep their children from burning in hell.
Oh, my, I had no idea this whole discussion was going on! I thought I was supposed to get email notifications when there are comments on my posts! I thank all those who enjoyed the story and found a blessing in it, and I humbly submit that the disagreements might have been more kindly handled. We can all agree to disagree, so long as we don't disagree that Jesus loves us.
For the record, this is not a children's story–it was written for this forum and for my devotional blog. It's simply from the point of view of the child in the story, because I think it would be valuable for us to consider what our small contributions might be to the work of Christ. And because I think the question at the end is worth pondering, too. Why didn't Jesus want to be king? Of course, we know why, 2,000 years later, but what would you have thought if you'd been there?
By the way: I have no idea why my name was not at the top. It should always be. I write all the devotional blogs.