king-making episode

152:3.1The feed­ing of the five thou­sand by super­nat­u­ral en­ergy was an­other of those cases where hu­man pity plus cre­ative power equaled that which hap­pened. Now that the mul­ti­tude had been fed to the full, and since Je­sus’ fame was then and there aug­mented by this stu­pen­dous won­der, the project to seize the Mas­ter and pro­claim him king re­quired no fur­ther per­sonal di­rec­tion. The idea seemed to spread through the crowd like a con­ta­gion. The re­ac­tion of the mul­ti­tude to this sud­den and spec­tac­u­lar sup­ply­ing of their phys­i­cal needs was pro­found and over­whelm­ing. For a long time the Jews had been taught that the Mes­siah, the son of David, when he should come, would cause the land again to flow with milk and honey, and that the bread of life would be be­stowed upon them as manna from heaven was sup­posed to have fallen upon their fore­fa­thers in the wilder­ness. And was not all of this ex­pec­ta­tion now ful­filled right be­fore their eyes? When this hun­gry, un­der­nour­ished mul­ti­tude had fin­ished gorg­ing it­self with the won­der-food, there was but one unan­i­mous re­ac­tion: “Here is our king.” The won­der-work­ing de­liv­erer of Is­rael had come. In the eyes of these sim­ple-minded peo­ple the power to feed car­ried with it the right to rule. No won­der, then, that the mul­ti­tude, when it had fin­ished feast­ing, rose as one man and shouted, “Make him king!”

152:3.2This mighty shout en­thused Pe­ter and those of the apos­tles who still re­tained the hope of see­ing Je­sus as­sert his right to rule. But these false hopes were not to live for long. This mighty shout of the mul­ti­tude had hardly ceased to re­ver­ber­ate from the near-by rocks when Je­sus stepped upon a huge stone and, lift­ing up his right hand to com­mand their at­ten­tion, said: “My chil­dren, you mean well, but you are short­sighted and ma­te­rial-minded.” There was a brief pause; this stal­wart Galilean was there ma­jes­ti­cally posed in the en­chant­ing glow of that east­ern twi­light. Ev­ery inch he looked a king as he con­tin­ued to speak to this breath­less mul­ti­tude: “You would make me king, not be­cause your souls have been lighted with a great truth, but be­cause your stom­achs have been filled with bread. How many times have I told you that my king­dom is not of this world? This king­dom of heaven which we pro­claim is a spir­i­tual broth­er­hood, and no man rules over it seated upon a ma­te­rial throne. My Fa­ther in heaven is the all-wise and the all-pow­er­ful Ruler over this spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of the sons of God on earth. Have I so failed in re­veal­ing to you the Fa­ther of spir­its that you would make a king of his Son in the flesh! Now all of you go hence to your own homes. If you must have a king, let the Fa­ther of lights be en­throned in the heart of each of you as the spirit Ruler of all things.”

152:3.3These words of Je­sus sent the mul­ti­tude away stunned and dis­heart­ened. Many who had be­lieved in him turned back and fol­lowed him no more from that day. The apos­tles were speech­less; they stood in si­lence gath­ered about the twelve bas­kets of the frag­ments of food; only the chore boy, the Mark lad, spoke, “And he re­fused to be our king.” Je­sus, be­fore go­ing off to be alone in the hills, turned to An­drew and said: “Take your breth­ren back to Zeb­e­dee’s house and pray with them, es­pe­cially for your brother, Si­mon Pe­ter.”

• 90% of Jesus’ followers deserted after

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: