Marsh pp 279 – 290 (Which includes an extremely helpful introduction on the place of the Walking on the Water in the whole story.)

This is one of the few incidents in John’s account of the ministry of Jesus that has parallels in the Synoptics. Like Matthew and Mark, John chooses to retain the ‘Walking on the Water’ which follows immediately after the Feeding of the Five Thousand. A key question you may need to discuss is whether or not the Walking on the Water is, in fact, a sign. This will be touched upon in this section, but will have a section to itself later.

John mentions three Passovers – the first is in Chapter 2, Jesus’ first ministry visit to Jerusalem, where he cleanses the Temple, and reveals that His Body is now the new temple through which is the new way that God has provided for people to reach Him, and where He is reported to have predicted his own death and resurrection. The third Passover is when the crucifixion and resurrection take place, and Jesus’ mission of redemption and renewal is accomplished. In the middle we have this Passover, when Jesus feeds the Five Thousand, declaring Himself to be the successor to Moses, prefiguring the Last Supper/Eucharist, the giving of His Body and Blood for the Life of the World on the Cross and the eschatological Messianic Banquet.

Thus the Passover experience, the great Old Testament sign of God’s sovereign deliverance of His people, is used by John to emphasise the central significance of the self-giving of Jesus for the life of the World which is implicit in the sign and made explicit in the ‘Bread of Life’ discourse which follows later in Chapter 6.

Bultmann (the arch-protestant) argues against a sacramental context. He suggests that verses 6: 51-58 have been added by a later church redactor, on the grounds that in other places in the Gospel, the Evangelist has argued that it is ‘coming to Jesus’ that ensures eternal life. " … here (6.32 ff) the bread of life which the Father gives by sending the Son from heaven is the Son Himself .. He gives, and is, the bread of life … and … gives life to the world – to those, that is, who "come" to Him. In all of this there is no need for a sacramental act, by means of which the believer must make the life his own." Barrett largely agrees with this, saying that "It is, perhaps, too much to call the discourse a ‘sacramental’ discourse."

Lightfoot, on the other hand, is readier to accept an overtly sacramental eucharistic context. "And we now learn that a condition of eternal life, and of being raised up at the last day by the Lord, is not only belief on Him, (6:47) but a partaking of His fleash and blood: by this means, a mutual indwelling is set up between the believer and his Lord."

I’ve already suggested that the sign points both to Jesus and to the witnesses, revealing spiritual truths about both of them. Interestingly, the crowd has the right reaction – but for the wrong reasons! The crowd recognise the sign that has been performed as being an eschatological, messianic sign. That’s why they move to make Jesus King. In this sign, with its allusions to the promises of God’s Kingdom on earth, they see the authority of the Messiah, anointed by God. However, they are interpreting his Kingdom as being an earthly Kingdom, which will be recognised by the whole world, in other words, a political Kingdom. As Pilate is to discover later during Jesus’ trial, Jesus does not view His Kingdom in earthly terms, and has no armies to call on to establish Him as king.

In attempting to make Jesus an earthly king, the crowd shows that it failed to understand the sign in the context of the self-giving of Jesus – ie His death. They want to give Him a crown. He knows that His throne will be a cross.

The disciples are also tested by this miracle and the teaching which follows it. At the end of the discourse, the evangelist informs us that many of the disciples that followed Jesus did not have enough faith in Him to accept the implications of the sign and discourse. Perhaps it was the implication that Jesus was as closely linked with the Father as He claimed to be. Or perhaps they too found difficulty in accepting that Jesus’ mission was to die on the cross for the ‘life of the world’. However, Jesus accepts that there are some who do not believe, and at this point we are told that He already knew who would betray Him.

This sign clearly takes in all the themes of the prologue – the creator with authority over the creation, the giver of life, the identity and kingship of Jesus, the link with and superseding of Moses, the mission from and return to the Father. We could assume from the inclusion of this miracle, which is in every Gospel, that here we are encountering one of the most significant incidents in Jesus’ ministry, and so it proves.

Likewise, we have the clearest possible allusion to the death of Jesus – the one who lays down His life for the life of the world. Here is the Word made Flesh showing how that flesh will be central to the plan for the salvation of the world. (Now darlings, this is what makes Christianity so unique. Without the Incarnation, there could be no life/ministry of Jesus, and no death of Jesus. There could also be no resurrection. Without the death and resurrection, likewise, the Incarnation makes no sense. Here we have a holistic approach to redemption that, it seems to me, no other faith professes. Complete involvement in creation on the part of God = complete redemption of the creation by God. There could be no total self-giving , for of course, being Spirit, God could not experience total involvement). The Passover context to this sign and to the Passion/Resurrection events seems to me to be significant, as Pesach is principally about freedom to live and worship as God wants, rather than forgiveness of sin. I suppose you could argue that when the Jews placed the blood of the paschal lamb on their doorposts, they were protected from the judgement of God on the sin of Pharoah, but for me, the main point is passing through judgement in order to move into a new freedom of relationship with God. For this reason, I personally would argue, with Marsh, that the Walking on the Water is an integral part of this sign, included both for reasons of tradition and theology.

This is the only event in the ministry of Jesus which is reported in all four gospels. This suggests a variety of sources and an old tradition. Marsh (p 281) describes this as "… an actual historical situation, an occasion when Jesus fed five thousand people miraculously." Naturally, Bultmann will want to claim that the source refers to a ‘dramatized event’ in the life of Jesus, and will look for explanations other than a supernatural occurrence. However, even he is prepared to accept that both Mark and John’s acounts are dependent on "a ‘ritualistic tradition’, which was already present in literary form."

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