The very last time we read of an earthly kingship for Jesus is in a text by a Roman hand: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” ran the sign above his cross. Pilate challenged any claims to kingship during the trial for sedition. The soldiers then mocked Jesus precisely as king of the Jews. But where did Pilate and the soldiers get an idea that Jesus was kinging himself? It seems this episode in John 6 is the genesis of the idea.
Popular acclaim of Jesus as king begins with his feeding five thousand with a few loaves and fish. The wedding guests didn’t think to make him king after they tasted his wine. The Samaritan woman merely suspects she’s met the Messiah at her well. It seems thoughts of a crown for Jesus bubbled up into the people's heads from digesting the feast he gave them.
Feeding becomes a catalyst for kingship because a “King Jesus” would make mighty changes to the daily lives of his people. If the crowd is made up of subsistence workers, then all their work is a matter of survival, of existence: they work today to eat tomorrow. But Jesus’ feeding lifts away the daily burden of working to eat, and so he might as well be king as prophet. A feeding king would not just give his people food but also rest; he’d not just see to their hunger but also their leisure. If there is someone among us who can make it Sunday all week long, make him king.
And so, from this point on, talk of an earthly crown for Jesus seems to be in the air: such a laurel would be the great hope of a subsistent people and the worst fear of occupying potentates. Because he will not change daily life but all-life, because he will not remove death except by giving life after death, the Lord escapes further into the hills, away from the valley where a crown might await him. He eschews any crown the crowds would give him. He will be crowned by his Father when all is accomplished.
So why feed the people in this way if they’re not going to get it? Why does it seem he makes people misunderstand him? It’s not just the case that the Lord was meeting the basic need for sustenance, otherwise he might not have let the crowds for whom he has compassion follow him so far out of town.
He miraculously feeds the five thousand because he is contrasting his eternal life with ours. His eternal life is toil-free, all-ease, and dignified with all grace, whereas our mortal life is toilsome, only sometimes easy, and pervaded with redeeming grace but not naturally so. The food which the Lord gave to the crowds is but a foretaste of the feast which he has prepared for the redeemed: the heavenly banquet will be laid before us as a host provides for his guests. And so, if we follow the Lord, not to make him king here but to be made royal by him there, we shall have all we have ever wanted. If we pursue him for our own pleasure, ambition, or plotting, we shall go hungry.
Over the coming weeks of August (with an interruption next Sunday for St Dominic’s Day), we shall take up the rest of John 6. And in so doing, we shall come to understand a little better the gifts our heavenly king wants to bestow now to help us arrive at his heaven. Ultimately, he gives himself to the crowds wearing a crown made of thorns: not in a flashy parody or crude play, after which costumes come off and the daily grind resumes, but in the high drama of the cross, from which a much larger multitude is fed.
Fr Paul Rowse, OP Parish Priest
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