The Five Thousand try to crown Jesus.

John 6.14-15.

Right after Jesus and his students feed the 5,000 in the Galilee, this happens:

John 6.14-15 KWL

14So the people,

seeing the sign Jesus does,

are saying this:

“Truly, this is the Prophet

who comes into the world!”

15So Jesus,

knowing they are about to come and seize him

so that they might make him king,

goes back again into a mountain,

alone by himself.

The synoptic gospels also tell this story, but Mark and Matthew end it thisaway:

Mark 6.45 KJV

And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people.

Matthew 14.22 KJV

And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

Mark and Matthew don’t say why Jesus ordered his students to “straightway” (Greek εὐθέως/efthéos, “quickly”) get into the boat, but John certainly fills in that blank: The crowds believed the miracle of feeding an entire town’s worth of people with one boy’s lunch Jn 6.9 was a σημεῖον/simíon, a sign from God. In their bible, the last time somebody miraculously fed a massive crowd with bread was when Moses ben Amram led the newly-freed Hebrews into the wilderness, and the LORD fed ’em manna. And didn’t Moses say this?—

Deuteronomy 18.15-19 KJV

15The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; 16according to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. 17And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. 18I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. 19And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

The LORD goes on, describing a fake prophet in case anybody tries to pull a fast one on the Hebrews, Dt 18.20-22 and Christians really oughta memorize that passage, because many a fake prophet has successfully pulled some fast ones on us.

But even though people recognize (and are meant to recognize) the LORD is describing any prophet who steps up and says, “The LORD told me something,” Pharisees claimed this passage is also an End Times prophecy. At some point before the End, there’s gonna be a Prophet-Like-Moses who, just like Moses, is gonna rescue Israel from their enemies, take ’em back into the wilderness, and feed ’em manna.

Is Jesus this Prophet-Like-Moses? Yes he is. Simon Peter said so. Ac 3.20-26

Now, is he gonna do what Pharisees believed he’d do? Some of it. Definitely not all. Fr’instance he is gonna rescue Israel from its enemies… but he’s not taking Israel into the wilderness to feed ’em manna; there’s no need for that. Unless “feed them manna” is a metaphor for “teach them the word of God”—but again, there’s no need to take ’em into the wilderness for that.

In any event that’s the quandary Jesus now found himself in. Yes he’s the Prophet; no, he’s not gonna do that.

Wonky End Times expectations.

Some of TXAB’s readers may have heard about a Prophet-Like-Moses who rescues Israel during the End Times. Certain Christian prognosticators have borrowed a few Pharisee beliefs for their End Times timelines, so they insist there’s a guy, during a future great tribulation, who’s gonna lead Israel into the wilderness and feed ’em manna. And he’s not Jesus.

Yeah, I know. Even though Peter and the scriptures are clear Jesus is this Prophet—and don’t at all say Jesus is gonna do any such thing. Nor will he need to. He’s returning, in power—and by “in power” I mean with thousands upon thousands of angels, plus two billion Christians who’ve been resurrected (including existing Christians, like us) who therefore can’t die. Anybody who’s been putting their hopes in weapons of mass death, are gonna find they have no effect on Jesus’s entourage. So why would he need to take Israel out to the middle of nowhere to defend them? He’s can defeat every army in the world simultaneously, effortlessly, and doesn’t need to take any such defensive position.

But bear in mind a lot of End Times predictions aren’t at all based on bible. They’re based on, and fueled by, irrational fears. Stands to reason they’d include a lot of nonsense. I once knew some missionaries who were planning to build a giant food bunker in Jordan, ’cause they believed Jordan was the “wilderness” where the Prophet-Like-Moses would take his Israelis. Now, if the Prophet’s feeding them with manna… exactly why would they need a food bunker? You see the kind of irrational nonsense this sort of thinking produces.

Okay, back to the first century, where Jesus was dealing with the very same irrational nonsense. He’d just fed 5,000 Galileans, who quickly and correctly deduced he’s the Prophet. Then quickly and incorrectly, decided to implement some of the End TImes bushwa the Pharisees had been feeding them. And not even getting that right.

Y’might recall when the Jerusalem priests were trying to figure out who John the baptist was, they asked him if he was Messiah, the Prophet, or the second coming of Elijah. He said no to all three. Jn 1.19-21 Jesus elsewhere said John is so Elijah, but John didn’t recognize himself as the fulfillment of that prophecy; Jesus did. And yet some of our End Times prognosticators still claim there will be a future second coming of Elijah. Those guys, I tell ya.

Pharisees believed these three guys would usher in the End Times. Elijah and the Prophet would perform mighty acts, and herald Messiah as the coming king; then Messiah would conquer the world. Some Pharisees claimed these were all one and the same guy, but the majority insisted nope, three guys. But these Galileans wanted to make Jesus king—as if he were Messiah. So either they believed the three guys are really one guy… or, which is more likely, got carried away by their own irrational emotions, and didn’t care if they were mixing up the guys. They just wanted a king.

True, they already had a king; Herod Antipas. But he was appointed by the Romans, not God; and he sucked. They wanted a real Israeli to lead Israel, drive out the Romans, and make Israel great again. Yep, there was a whole lot of nationalism tied up in their End Times beliefs; the United States has the same problem.

But even though Jesus is Messiah and king, no, he’s not gonna do that either.

The whole problem stems from people overlaying their harebrained ideas upon Jesus, and insisting he’s gonna do things their way. And their way tends to be, honestly, pretty depraved. Power gets redistributed to them, not surrendered to Jesus. Wealth gets redistributed to them, not generously given to the needy. They start clamping down on personal freedoms, claiming they gotta do this because they’re fighting sin, and God hates sin; ignoring the fact the battle with sin has to be internally done by each individual, or it’ll become pure hypocrisy. But they’re not really fighting sin; they’re banning their own prejudices.

Jesus’s way is infinitely better, and we gotta quit trying to seize power and trust him. But, y’know, we don’t. That’s why all the Christian nationalists in every country, who wanna create their own ideas of God’s kingdom, and never notice they don’t follow the Sermon on the Mount or Jesus’s parables any, so they’re obviously not God’s kingdom. They’re earthly kingdoms. Ones Jesus has yet to conquer.

And Jesus never wanted to set up one of those kingdoms, so he wisely told his kids to get out of there, and personally retreated from the 5,000. He’s not putting together some ridiculous armed rebellion against the Romans; they could try that on their own, some 40 years later, and see where it got ’em. He was leaving the field to go talk with his Father.

Maybe we oughta leave the field and go talk with our Father.