Disciple Or Mere Member Of The Crowd

For the Jews the Passover was a festival of beginnings, a time to remember who they were and where they came from. Each year during that time they a recalled 40-year journey in the wilderness that brought them from slavery to freedom, from Egypt to the Land of Promise. And all during those 40 years the LORD God fed them with some kind of bread from heaven, bread never known before or since; hence called in Hebrew Manna—what is it.

So the Apostle John begins his account of Jesus feeding thousands out in the hills near the inland Sea of Galilee:

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. - Jhn 6:1-6 ESV

Why did the crowd follow Jesus? Because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.

As some of you know if you've been reading my blogs, I recently had my heart's aortic valve replaced by means of a procedure known as trans-catheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). I find now that people with heart disease ask me where this was done and who the physicians were. I'm always happy to share this information with them, as well as to offer myself as an example of the success of this medical practice.

That was what brought the thousands out to where Jesus was. The word was out. This man from Nazareth healed people from blindness, dropsy, blood diseases, leprosy and all sorts of other things. They even said he had raised a young man and a little girl from the dead. And many told them he drove out demons and restored crazy people to sanity. This was a man they had to see! Who wouldn't want to follow such a doctor to gain from his expertise and find healing?

The doctors that performed their amazing work on my body's blood-pump are marvelous people. I am most grateful to them. From what they told me, my blood-pump (heart) was under extreme pressure as it pumped blood to the rest of my body through such a narrowed sclerotic or hardened valve. A couple more years, perhaps less, was all I had. In a very real sense they saved or extended my life. For this work they will be well paid, both by my insurance company and by me.

However, I will never be a their disciple! Notice what John wrote,

. . . a large crowd was following him. . . Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.

The crowd followed Jesus, but they were not his disciples. What is a disciple, particularly as John uses the word in his Gospel? We encounter the word at the very beginning of John's Gospel.

(Andrew) first found his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ). ... Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. . . Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" - Jhn 1:41,45,49 ESV

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. - Jhn 2:1-2 ESV

The word Messiah (Christ in Greek) had a peculiar meaning among those Jews. It was directly related to the Passover season and Jewish history. It went back to the days of David, son of Jesse, who, at God's command, was anointed by the prophet-judge Samuel to replace Israel's first failed king, Saul, son of Kish (1 Samuel 9:1-2; 16:1-13). During the 10th century B.C., under David and then his son Solomon the first Temple was built in Jerusalem and Israel rose to the zenith of its power and glory (1 Kings 10:1-29). From that point on everything went downhill. In the days of Jesus Israel was nothing but a vassal state of the Roman Empire. But the Jews clung to the dream and the hope that one day God would raise up a new anointed king (Messiah) who would restore Israel's power and glory.

The prophets wrote about it. The Jews gathered on each Passover to pray for Messiah's coming.

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. . . - Isa 11:1-16 ESV

Jesus initially gathered men as his disciples because they believed him to be the Messiah, but they had a long, long way to go to understand what that really meant. Nevertheless, this faith distinguished them from the crowd that came to Jesus merely for healing. John writes that Jesus' acts of healing were signs pointing to a much deeper reality. The crowd that followed him did not grasp that. His disciples had some understanding, but there was so much more.

In my next posts I will explore what all this means for us who call ourselves Christians or followers of Jesus today. What's the difference between being a member of the crowd and a true disciple?