close… but wrong

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

John 6:14

You can be close to getting things right about the identity of Jesus, and still be totally wrong.The crowd of five thousand that were fed by Jesus were right about the true miracle they experienced being a sign. They were right that Jesus was in one sense fulfilling the role of a promised prophet like Moses spoken of in Deuteronomy. But they were totally off on the scope of His mission.

Jesus withdrew from this joyous crowd because they were over-enthusiastic about Him in all the wrong ways, because they wanted by force to make Him King (John 6:15). They wanted food, miracles here and now and an earthly set of solutions. This was nearsighted and wrong. None of this was ultimately the focus of the Savior’s mission.

Jesus will not be limited by our petty human concerns… no matter how obsessed we are with Him addressing them. He is much more than a meal ticket. He is not just a healer at our beck and call. He is bigger than our petty politics. Jesus is not just a king… He is Lord over all other Kings that rule, even those desires that rule our hearts that can twist our understanding of Him. He will not stand to be limited in our thinking to just an earthly rule. And so we must trust Him when He does not address our earthly concerns as we would want. Why? Because His purposes are perfect!