The events of The Galilee Kingdom Tour culminate with the gathering of a climactic crowd accompanied by the performance of a major multiplication miracle followed by a miraculous walk followed by another climactic crowd interaction. Jesus’ schedule is crowded!

Then just like that, the crowd disperses, and life goes on. How does this happen?

Before we answer that question, let us consider the major miracles. Distributing bread to 5,000-plus people in groups of 50 at a time would have taken a couple hours at least, but what did the average person in the crowd witness? Could they see to verify the multiplication of loaves, or were they simply handed a loaf by one of the twelve? They certainly could verify the generous provision even if they could not verify the source.

And what of walking on water? No one else except the few disciples in the small boat saw Jesus in this one-time-recorded event (Jn 6:22). In terms of time, it was just a drop in their lives, yet their witness has caused huge ripples through generations.

Interestingly enough, even after the disciples had gone and Jesus dismissed the crowd, according to John, at least some of the people remained in the area (Jn 6:22). These people sought out Jesus in Capernaum and rather mundanely were apparently looking for more bread (Jn 6:26).

For the participants in the story, the sensational is subsumed by their daily lives and needs. We can look back 2,000 years later and marvel at the miraculous, but if we’re honest, it doesn’t affect our day-to-day very much either. I don’t expect to multiply bread or walk on water, after all.

But when the crowd turns on Jesus (Jn 6:66), that is a repeatable historical phenomenon true-to-life.

When Sabbath comes, the rules of day bring quiet. The energy of the crowd played out. Sabbath provided a guardrail so that events did not careen out of control. . . And another harvest was coming.

Have you ever been part of a big crowd?

To your right, you greet local people who traveled across town. To your left, you meet people who traveled across country. Radio, tv, billboards, Web sites, and word-of-mouth are ways the crowd heard about the event.

Big crowds don’t just happen. They are part of a larger social context and communication network.

In Jesus’ story, we read about three big crowds. On one occasion over 5,000 joined Jesus (Mk 6:44). Later 4,000 gathered to hear him teach (Mk 8:9). A third account mentions a crowd of many thousands around Jesus (Lk 12:1).

Drawing a crowd of thousands today requires a lot of time and effort including marketing plans, venue negotiations, sound system setup, security, etc.

Minus the technology, similar crowd-factors would apply in Jesus’ day such as…

• Since crowds take time to gather, Jesus must have stayed put for a time rather than always being on the move.
• Some marketing-like communication must have let people know where Jesus was.
• A location with great acoustics and low background noise was critical since there was no amplified sound.
• Regional population density and seasonal work demands impacted who could gather and when.

It’s fun to think about the energy of a big crowd around Jesus. It’s important to realize that for that crowd to gather to Jesus, like a crowd gathering today, the factors had to be just right.

The Galilee speaking tour was a wild success! So Jesus lived the sweet life from one success to the next, right?

It’s easy to think that way, especially when you hear the phrase, “I can do all things through Christ.” There’s a song, a poster, t-shirts, etc. How can we not experience success!?

But wait… it follows that if Christ can do all things for us, then he should have been able do all things for himself, too. So I assumed that Jesus’ experience was not subject to suspense or uncertainty. He never got into a jam. Logically, I then wondered why I had so much anxiety and gridlock in my life if Christ could just bail me out like he did himself.

Either something was wrong with me or something was wrong with him.

I took a second look at the context of the phrase, “I can do all things” and was shocked by what I found.

What I understand now, I will try to explain with a picture of the phrase from the original Greek. The circled words below mean “all,” so there are three references to “all” in the context of the “can do” phrase.  When it says, “I can do all things,” the “all things” summarizes the preceding the sentence, which includes

• living in humble circumstances
• times of surplus resources
• having plenty of food
• going hungry
• times of surplus (repeated)
• going without

This list seems closer to my experience.

It’s easy to see Jesus’ experience without any friction, like he was just acting out a movie script that he had already read. Sure, he put in a fine performance, but where’s the suspense?

But as we follow Jesus for a year, we rediscover the suspense. And ultimately, we see the same high’s and low’s, the same busy and quiet, the same gains and losses that mark the seasons of our lives–and along the way we learn not to get too fixated on one extreme or the other.

Jesus commissioned six disciple-pairs, twelve men, to take his message to the towns of Galilee. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke provide background.

Matthew gives the scope of the operation. Jesus sent the twelve specifically to Israelite towns in Galilee, not to the foreigners of the north or the Samaritans to the south (Mt 10:5-6).

The basic message Jesus gave his men to speak: “The kingdom of heaven is near” (Mt 10:7). Jesus also instructed them to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons, and freely give.

Mark and Luke offer Jesus’ instruction on the logistics of the speaking tour: “Take nothing for the journey” (Mk 6:8; Lk 9:3). So the twelve would be entirely dependent on hospitality.

So without any luggage, the twelve were heading into Galilee, a province that was 50 miles long and 25 miles wide. The mountainous region of Galilee extended from the Lebanese mountains in the north to the Jezreel Plain between Galilee and Samaria in the south, and from Lake Galilee on the east to just inland from the coast. (Tyre controlled the coast.)

Josephus commented that Galilee included over 200 cities and villages (Life, 235). Concerning the economy, Josephus writes, “Their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts. . . [the land] is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies idle. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick” (Jewish War, 3.43).**

Six teams to cover a populated region about the size of Rhode Island.

** Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).