Listen Here: “Expectations“
2 Kings 4:42-44; John 6:1-14
- Today we are talking about the feeding of the five thousand.
- In that story Jesus teaches us about our expectations.
- In one sense a miracle is a violation of our expectations. Miracles are improbable, unexpected. Miracles are disturbing because they don’t fit into our understanding.
- We could say that miracles expand our understanding of the world, or that they violate our understanding of the world.
- In either case, expanding or violating, miracles stress our understanding of the world because miracles cause us to rethink what we think we understand about the world.
- And that’s a hard thing to do. It takes time and effort.
- An interesting thing about this miracle is that at the time, in Jesus’ day, no one expected Jesus to create food out of thin air.
- But today Christians do expect the story to be about the miraculous creation of food out of thin air.
- So I want to look at the story more closely this morning, to help us see the actual miracle because it’s not what people expect.