Withdrawing and testing

 This week's verses are John 6:1-6:

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Sea of Tiberias). A large crowd was following him because they were observing the miraculous signs he was performing on the sick. So Jesus went on up the mountainside and sat down there with his disciples. (Now the Jewish Feast of the Passover was near.) Then Jesus, when he looked up and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread so that these people may eat?” (Now Jesus said this to test him, for he knew what he was going to do.)

 We've heard the parables of the loaves and fishes countless times as Christians. Even people who have never read the Bible or set foot in church are familiar with these stories. Still, there are two things in these verses that challenge how many of us see Jesus and are worth exploring.

The first thing is Jesus withdrawing from the crowd to spend time with his disciples. If we read the gospels, we see that it was quite common for Jesus to withdraw from the crowds, even sometimes from his disciples. But it isn't necessarily how we picture Jesus.

We would think that Jesus would want to reach as many people as possible in the short time he was on earth. We'd imagine that he'd be running towards the crowds, not away from them, especially crowds in search of a miracle. But more often than not, when he has a chance, he withdraws to the wilderness.

How many of us follow his example without fearing the judgment of our Christian peers? In a crowded church weekend, or a packed preaching schedule, or a busy holiday weekend, do we take the time to commune with God. We need that. Call it a Tactical Sabbath if you need to, but rest is one of God's commandments.

The second thing was Jesus giving his disciples an impossible situation, knowing fully what he was going to do. They're on the mountainside, where there is nothing, and there is a large crowd approaching, like hungry marathoners. And Jesus' call to the disciples is to feed them. How?? And why would he ask if he already knew they weren't going to be able to do it on their own?

But this is also something God does with us. Even if he has never placed some impossible situation into our lives, the Bible itself is full of commandments that seem impossible to us. Forgive someone infinitely? Give everything? Be willing to face deadly torture and death for Him? There are so many things we can't do without his help. He puts us in situations as a test, to see if we understand that we need him.

In fact, the two things are different facets of the same message: We are limited.

We are limited in time. We can't push forward infinitely into eternity without a break to rest. So God created the Sabbath, to show us that this is an unnatural thing in his creation. Nothing can make itself last forever.

And we are limited in the physical world too. We can't just arbitrarily change or control the things around us. We will never do everything or be everything. We have to know when to ask for help in reaching the things that are beyond our grasp.

The holiday season is a time when we can sometimes push ourselves to the limits and live in a way that we're not meant to live. Jesus commands us to withdraw from the crowds and rest with him. Are you attuned to his call to follow him that way?

And he sometimes he commands the impossible, as a way to show us our limits and invite us into partnership with him. When you encounter the impossible, do you burn yourself out trying to do it yourself? Or do you recognize the test and ask him to guide you?

The holiday season is also the season of Advent, where we're meant to wait on God and discover those aspects of him that maybe we hadn't seen before. This week, look for opportunities to draw away and rest with him, and to know when to call on him for help.