This chapter is so big we’re gunna do two parts with this one. The first part we’re gunna cover is John 6:1-25.
In this part there are two sections. The first section documents a large crowd following Jesus because of all the miracles He performed. When all these people were sitting together Jesus asks Phillip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?” Andrew pipes up and tells Jesus about a boy with five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus takes the small amount of food and miraculously multiplies it and feeds over 5,000 people and then has His disciples pick up his leftovers.
The next section tells of how the people saw Jesus perform this miracle and wanted to come make Him King, His rightful position as Son of David. Instead, Jesus fled to the mountain to be alone with the Father. His disciples took a boat to cross the sea and left Jesus on the mount. After the disciples left and were rowing for about 4 miles Jesus decides to walk out on the water to the boat and freak out the disciples.
John 6 <— Link here
Often times we access Christianity by what is “spiritual” and what is “physical”. If it’s spiritual it’s good, and if it’s physical it’s worldly and bad. There is a historical heresy called Gnosticism (<link) that over emphasizes the spiritual, much like popular culture does with its generic theology.
What I’m saying is that it’s easy to contain and judge our faith when we separate our actions into spiritual and physical. If I go to church and pray, that’s spiritual. If I go grocery shopping after church, that’s physical. If I go to work, that’s physical. Unless I have a job at the church, then it’s spiritual.
Not so much.
Let me ask you this, was the feeding of the 5,000 spiritual or physical? Was the walking on the water spiritual or physical?
The truth is that Jesus Christ was and is the intersection of Heaven and Earth, King of the spiritual and King the physical (both to be revealed at the last day, we know it to be true now). Jesus spoke with great compassion to real life, troubled people, and yet tore open the real atmosphere and brought forth miracles with His mere words.
Jesus was the bridge between the physical and the spiritual. He was and is the redeemer of the real earth with the real and stinky people who live on it. For Jesus, the Kingdom of God was the redemption of ALL creation spiritual and physical. Heaven and earth.
Don’t let anyone fool you! As a son or daughter of God every action is valuable and has effects on the lives of others, even eternal effects. As children of God even the smallest act of love can soften the most hardened and damned soul. The scripture says that “Whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.”
Your life in it’s entirety, has been redeemed by the incarnate son of God. Jesus was not concerned with acting spiritual, He loved and acted out of love with no boundaries. Go and do likewise. Live out love and let it rip through every heavenly barrier.
Collision of Kingdoms 
We’ve all heard the term “too Heavenly minded to be any earthly good”. There are times I have been guilty of not being real or seeming to over-spiritualize everything, having my head in the clouds, maybe not the true “glory cloud”, just a cloud…
My thoughts about Jesus feeding the people before sending them away. When I am physically hungry, eating can be a spiritual thing. My body needs fuel and if it doesn’t get some fuel, before too long, my body will refuse to function. Jesus knew the people were at a point their bodies needed physical fuel. He had already fueled their spirits and He knew it takes both fuels for his message to stay with them. Spirits run on Spiritual manna. Bodies run on natural food. It takes both working together to make us whole! Salvation means to be made whole! Jesus wanted them and us to be made WHOLE!