Events Leading up to the Capernaum Crisis

152:2.1Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach the peo­ple by day while he in­structed the apos­tles and evan­ge­lists at night. On Fri­day he de­clared a fur­lough of one week that all his fol­low­ers might go home or to their friends for a few days be­fore prepar­ing to go up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. But more than one half of his dis­ci­ples re­fused to leave him, and the mul­ti­tude was daily in­creas­ing in size, so much so that David Zeb­e­dee de­sired to es­tab­lish a new en­camp­ment, but Je­sus re­fused con­sent. The Mas­ter had so lit­tle rest over the Sab­bath that on Sun­day morn­ing, March 27, he sought to get away from the peo­ple. Some of the evan­ge­lists were left to talk to the mul­ti­tude while Je­sus and the twelve planned to es­cape, un­no­ticed, to the op­po­site shore of the lake, where they pro­posed to ob­tain much needed rest in a beau­ti­ful park south of Beth­saida-Ju­lias. This re­gion was a fa­vorite re­sort­ing place for Ca­per­naum folks; they were all fa­mil­iar with these parks on the east­ern shore.

152:2.2But the peo­ple would not have it so. They saw the di­rec­tion taken by Je­sus’ boat, and hir­ing ev­ery craft avail­able, they started out in pur­suit. Those who could not ob­tain boats fared forth on foot to walk around the up­per end of the lake.

152:2.3By late af­ter­noon more than a thou­sand per­sons had lo­cated the Mas­ter in one of the parks, and he spoke to them briefly, be­ing fol­lowed by Pe­ter. Many of these peo­ple had brought food with them, and af­ter eat­ing the evening meal, they gath­ered about in small groups while Je­sus’ apos­tles and dis­ci­ples taught them.

152:2.4Mon­day af­ter­noon the mul­ti­tude had in­creased to more than three thou­sand. And still—way into the evening—the peo­ple con­tin­ued to flock in, bring­ing all man­ner of sick folks with them. Hun­dreds of in­ter­ested per­sons had made their plans to stop over at Ca­per­naum to see and hear Je­sus on their way to the Pass­over, and they sim­ply re­fused to be dis­ap­pointed. By Wednes­day noon about five thou­sand men, women, and chil­dren were as­sem­bled here in this park to the south of Beth­saida-Ju­lias. The weather was pleas­ant, it be­ing near the end of the rainy sea­son in this lo­cal­ity.

152:2.5Philip had pro­vided a three days’ sup­ply of food for Je­sus and the twelve, which was in the cus­tody of the Mark lad, their boy of all chores. By af­ter­noon of this, the third day for al­most half of this mul­ti­tude, the food the peo­ple had brought with them was nearly ex­hausted. David Zeb­e­dee had no tented city here to feed and ac­com­mo­date the crowds. Nei­ther had Philip made food pro­vi­sion for such a mul­ti­tude. But the peo­ple, even though they were hun­gry, would not go away. It was be­ing qui­etly whis­pered about that Je­sus, de­sir­ing to avoid trou­ble with both Herod and the Je­ru­sa­lem lead­ers, had cho­sen this quiet spot out­side the ju­ris­dic­tion of all his en­e­mies as the proper place to be crowned king. The en­thu­si­asm of the peo­ple was ris­ing ev­ery hour. Not a word was said to Je­sus, though, of course, he knew all that was go­ing on. Even the twelve apos­tles were still tainted with such no­tions, and es­pe­cially the younger evan­ge­lists. The apos­tles who fa­vored this at­tempt to pro­claim Je­sus king were Pe­ter, John, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, and Ju­das Is­car­iot. Those op­pos­ing the plan were An­drew, James, Na­than­iel, and Thomas. Mat­thew, Philip, and the Al­pheus twins were non­com­mit­tal. The ringleader of this plot to make him king was Joab, one of the young evan­ge­lists.

152:2.6This was the stage set­ting about five o’clock on Wednes­day af­ter­noon, when Je­sus asked James Al­pheus to sum­mon An­drew and Philip. Said Je­sus: “What shall we do with the mul­ti­tude? They have been with us now three days, and many of them are hun­gry. They have no food.” Philip and An­drew ex­changed glances, and then Philip an­swered: “Mas­ter, you should send these peo­ple away so that they may go to the vil­lages around about and buy them­selves food.” And An­drew, fear­ing the ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion of the king plot, quickly joined with Philip, say­ing: “Yes, Mas­ter, I think it best that you dis­miss the mul­ti­tude so that they may go their way and buy food while you se­cure rest for a sea­son.” By this time oth­ers of the twelve had joined the con­fer­ence. Then said Je­sus: “But I do not de­sire to send them away hun­gry; can you not feed them?” This was too much for Philip, and he spoke right up: “Mas­ter, in this coun­try place where can we buy bread for this mul­ti­tude? Two hun­dred denarii worth would not be enough for lunch.”

152:2.7Be­fore the apos­tles had an op­por­tu­nity to ex­press them­selves, Je­sus turned to An­drew and Philip, say­ing: “I do not want to send these peo­ple away. Here they are, like sheep with­out a shep­herd. I would like to feed them. What food have we with us?” While Philip was con­vers­ing with Mat­thew and Ju­das, An­drew sought out the Mark lad to as­cer­tain how much was left of their store of pro­vi­sions. He re­turned to Je­sus, say­ing: “The lad has left only five bar­ley loaves and two dried fishes”—and Pe­ter promptly added, “We have yet to eat this evening.”

152:2.8For a mo­ment Je­sus stood in si­lence. There was a far­away look in his eyes. The apos­tles said noth­ing. Je­sus turned sud­denly to An­drew and said, “Bring me the loaves and fishes.” And when An­drew had brought the bas­ket to Je­sus, the Mas­ter said: “Di­rect the peo­ple to sit down on the grass in com­pa­nies of one hun­dred and ap­point a leader over each group while you bring all of the evan­ge­lists here with us.”

152:2.9Je­sus took up the loaves in his hands, and af­ter he had given thanks, he broke the bread and gave to his apos­tles, who passed it on to their as­so­ciates, who in turn car­ried it to the mul­ti­tude. Je­sus in like man­ner broke and dis­tributed the fishes. And this mul­ti­tude did eat and were filled. And when they had fin­ished eat­ing, Je­sus said to the dis­ci­ples: “Gather up the bro­ken pieces that re­main over so that noth­ing will be lost.” And when they had fin­ished gath­er­ing up the frag­ments, they had twelve bas­ket­fuls. They who ate of this ex­traor­di­nary feast num­bered about five thou­sand men, women, and chil­dren.

152:2.10And this is the first and only na­ture mir­a­cle which Je­sus per­formed as a re­sult of his con­scious pre­plan­ning. It is true that his dis­ci­ples were dis­posed to call many things mir­a­cles which were not, but this was a gen­uine super­nat­u­ral min­is­tra­tion. In this case, so we were taught, Mi­chael mul­ti­plied food el­e­ments as he al­ways does ex­cept for the elim­i­na­tion of the time fac­tor and the vis­i­ble life chan­nel.