Events Leading up to the Capernaum Crisis

152:5.1Thurs­day morn­ing, be­fore day­light, they an­chored their boat off­shore near Zeb­e­dee’s house and sought sleep un­til about noon­time. An­drew was first up and, go­ing for a walk by the sea, found Je­sus, in com­pany with their chore boy, sit­ting on a stone by the wa­ter’s edge. Not­with­stand­ing that many of the mul­ti­tude and the young evan­ge­lists searched all night and much of the next day about the east­ern hills for Je­sus, shortly af­ter mid­night he and the Mark lad had started to walk around the lake and across the river, back to Beth­saida.

152:5.2Of the five thou­sand who were mirac­u­lously fed, and who, when their stom­achs were full and their hearts empty, would have made him king, only about five hun­dred per­sisted in fol­low­ing af­ter him. But be­fore these re­ceived word that he was back in Beth­saida, Je­sus asked An­drew to as­sem­ble the twelve apos­tles and their as­so­ciates, in­clud­ing the women, say­ing, “I de­sire to speak with them.” And when all were ready, Je­sus said:

152:5.3“How long shall I bear with you? Are you all slow of spir­i­tual com­pre­hen­sion and de­fi­cient in liv­ing faith? All these months have I taught you the truths of the king­dom, and yet are you dom­i­nated by ma­te­rial mo­tives in­stead of spir­i­tual con­sid­er­a­tions. Have you not even read in the Scrip­tures where Moses ex­horted the un­be­liev­ing chil­dren of Is­rael, say­ing: ‘Fear not, stand still and see the sal­va­tion of the Lord’? Said the singer: ‘Put your trust in the Lord.’ ‘Be pa­tient, wait upon the Lord and be of good cour­age. He shall strengthen your heart.’ ‘Cast your bur­den on the Lord, and he shall sus­tain you. Trust him at all times and pour out your heart to him, for God is your refuge.’ ‘He who dwells in the se­cret place of the Most High shall abide un­der the shadow of the Al­mighty.’ ‘It is bet­ter to trust the Lord than to put con­fi­dence in hu­man princes.’

152:5.4“And now do you all see that the work­ing of mir­a­cles and the per­for­mance of ma­te­rial won­ders will not win souls for the spir­i­tual king­dom? We fed the mul­ti­tude, but it did not lead them to hunger for the bread of life nei­ther to thirst for the wa­ters of spir­i­tual righ­teous­ness. When their hunger was sat­is­fied, they sought not en­trance into the king­dom of heaven but rather sought to pro­claim the Son of Man king af­ter the man­ner of the kings of this world, only that they might con­tinue to eat bread with­out hav­ing to toil there­for. And all this, in which many of you did more or less par­tic­i­pate, does noth­ing to re­veal the heav­enly Fa­ther or to ad­vance his king­dom on earth. Have we not suf­fi­cient en­e­mies among the re­li­gious lead­ers of the land with­out do­ing that which is likely to es­trange also the civil rulers? I pray that the Fa­ther will anoint your eyes that you may see and open your ears that you may hear, to the end that you may have full faith in the gospel which I have taught you.”

152:5.5Je­sus then an­nounced that he wished to with­draw for a few days of rest with his apos­tles be­fore they made ready to go up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over, and he for­bade any of the dis­ci­ples or the mul­ti­tude to fol­low him. Ac­cord­ingly they went by boat to the re­gion of Gen­nesaret for two or three days of rest and sleep. Je­sus was prepar­ing for a great cri­sis of his life on earth, and he there­fore spent much time in com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven.

152:5.6The news of the feed­ing of the five thou­sand and the at­tempt to make Je­sus king aroused wide­spread cu­rios­ity and stirred up the fears of both the re­li­gious lead­ers and the civil rulers through­out all Gal­i­lee and Judea. While this great mir­a­cle did noth­ing to fur­ther the gospel of the king­dom in the souls of ma­te­rial-minded and half­hearted be­liev­ers, it did serve the pur­pose of bring­ing to a head the mir­a­cle-seek­ing and king-crav­ing pro­cliv­i­ties of Je­sus’ im­me­di­ate fam­ily of apos­tles and close dis­ci­ples. This spec­tac­u­lar episode brought an end to the early era of teach­ing, train­ing, and heal­ing, thereby prepar­ing the way for the in­au­gu­ra­tion of this last year of pro­claim­ing the higher and more spir­i­tual phases of the new gospel of the king­dom—di­vine son­ship, spir­i­tual lib­erty, and eter­nal sal­va­tion.