The Wallow Fire, named for the Bear Wallow Wilderness area where it started, burned over half-a-million acres in Arizona and New Mexico this summerIt was the largest fire in Arizona’s history. The communities of Eager, Springerville, Nutrioso, Alpine, Luna and Blue River were threatened and evacuated. Over 3,500 people fought this massive fire. They used 15 helicopters, 5 airtankers, 196 fire engines, 72 water tenders, and 21 dozers. The fire threatened almost 3,000 homes and 500 commercial buildings.[1]
Imagine if a super-villain held a meeting prior to the May 29 start of the Wallow Fire and addressed a small group of evil masterminds: “What I need from you is something massively destructive. I want a tool so powerful it can destroy half-a-million acres in the United States. I want you to create a weapon that can threaten 3,000 homes and 500 commercial buildings.” The super-villain then gives these evil masterminds a week to come up with ideas. Imagine what ideas they might return with. One might bring plans for a giant bomb, as large as a skyscraper. One might bring drawings for a Space Shuttle with a space laser attached to it. They’d all probably bring thoughts of some kind of immense weapon of mass destruction. Common sense tells you that you’d need something giant to produce the destructive results requested by the super-villain.
Now imagine that one final evil mastermind makes his presentation to the super-villain. He says, “I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I’ve finally developed the tool that can scorch, destroy and remove life from half-a-million acres on earth.” The super-villain says, “Marvelous! Show it to me!” The evil mastermind reaches into his pocket and pulls out this: a small lighter. The super-villain laughs. He dismisses the evil mastermind as a waste of his time. Why? Because he thinks there’s no way something so humble could do anything as destructive as he had requested.
Yet this is exactly what seems to have happened in the Wallow Fire. Though it is still officially under investigation, the indications are that a person or persons started this record-breaking fire with a small campfire. And how was that campfire started? It was started with a match or a lighter—just like this. One flame led to the largest fire in Arizona’s history. One flame scorched over half-a-million acres.
The Wallow Fire is an example of how something hellish can result from something humble. Something as small and lowly and as a single flame can result in the destruction of acre after acre and ruin hundreds of thousands of people’s lives.
Thankfully, the opposite is also true. We see this in John 6. The Gospel of John, found in the New Testament, is one of four Gospels, or records of the life and ministry of Jesus. This gospel is written by a follower of Jesus named John who also wrote the shorter letters of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. The Gospel of John focuses on several “signs” or miracles that Jesus performed. It also focuses on several “I am” statements from Jesus (e.g., I am the light of the world, I am thy way, the truth, and the life, etc.).
We find one of these “I am” statements in John 6. At the end of this chapter Jesus is giving a speech. It is a speech about what Jesus calls “bread from heaven.” Jesus mentions “bread from heaven” in vv. 31, 32, 33, 41, 50, 51, and 58. The phrase “bread from heaven” shows up 7 times in this speech. The phrase “bread from heaven” is Jesus’ way of talking about how God is going to do something heavenly on earth. And it’s going to take place through what Jesus calls “bread.” What is this bread and what is this bread going to do? In v. 27 Jesus says this bread will give eternal life. In v. 28 he says it will give life to the world. In v. 35 he says it will eliminate hunger and thirst. In v. 40 he says it will make possible life after death. In v. 51 he says it will allow living forever. In v. 56 Jesus says it will lead to spiritual intimacy. This is pretty heavenly stuff. It’s the exact opposite of the Wallow Fire. Instead of killing it’s life-giving. Instead of scorching it’s healing. Jesus’ speech at the end of John 6 is about how God’s doing something so heavenly that it’s going to result in a better life for every person on the planet.
Imagine a meeting that might have taken place in heaven before this speech. God gathers his best thinkers and says, “I need you to come up with a tool that can bring about heavenly results on earth. This tool must be capable of bringing life to every person on the planet. It must eliminate hunger and thirst. It must make possible life after death. It must lead to spiritual intimacy. I’m calling this tool “bread” because humans are so used to thinking about how bread sustains life. But I’m going to leave the form up to you. Come up with a tool that can do this heavenly work on earth.” What might they come back with? They might return with an earth-sized CPR machine that can jolt life back into the human race. They might return with a needle the size of Texas by which life-giving medicine can be injected into humanity.
But here’s the winning entry:
“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life…’” (John 6:35 ESV)
“I am the bread of life.” (John 6:48 ESV)
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” (John 6:51 ESV).
Jesus says, “I am that tool. I am the means by which God will bring about this heavenly result. I am the way God is bringing eternal life and spiritual intimacy.”
And some of those listening laugh out loud. They shake their heads and dismiss Jesus as a waste of their time: “So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They said, ‘Is not this Jesus, this son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (John 6:41-42 ESV). These people find it impossible to believe that anything heavenly could result from someone so humble as Jesus. After all, this is Jesus we’re talking about. They watched him grow up. They smelled his dirty diapers. They watched him stumble over a rock as a toddler. They could tell you all kinds of rumors about his parents. This was Jesus! He was just a local nut. “Is this not Jesus, this son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven?’” There’s no way God could do this kind of heavenly work through this kind of lowly person.
And that’s where many of us find ourselves, at least at certain times in our lives. We find it hard to believe that something heavenly can result from something so humble. It’s hard for us to believe that significant results can emanate from insignificant tools. Malcolm Gladwell writes about the 75th precinct in New York.[2] He describes it as “an economically desperate community destined, by most accounts, to get more desperate in the years ahead.” The 75th precinct was infamous for its high crime rate. Yet, during a two period, it experienced a miraculous decrease in crime. In 1993, there were a 126 homicides. Two years later, there were only 44 homicides. Gladwell writes, “On the streets of the Seven-Five today, it is possible to see signs of everyday life that would have been unthinkable in the early nineties. There are now ordinary people on the streets at dusk-small children riding their bicycles, old people on benches and stoops, people coming out of the subways alone.” What heavenly changes! But what brought them about? Most people looked for large causes to explain the large drop in crime. But, Gladwell writes, the cause was probably something very small. The shift can be explained, he writes, by “the broken window hypothesis.” He explains: “In a famous experiment conducted twenty-seven years ago by the Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo, a car was parked on a street in Palo Alto, where it sat untouched for a week.” Then Zimbardo smashed one window of the car with a sledgehammer. Very shortly, the entire car was stripped bare. “Zimbardo’s point was that disorder invites even more disorder-that a small deviation from the norm can set into motion a cascade of vandalism and criminality. The broken window was the tipping point.” Concerning crime, the hypothesis states that if you fix a broken window, you set in motion a series of events that ends up preventing major crime. And that, Gladwell writes, is what happened in the 75th precinct. Officers began implementing a series of small efforts like confiscating more guns, running off more groups who were loitering on street corners, and stopping more suspicious looking cars. He writes, “sometimes the most modest of changes can bring about enormous effects. What happened to the murder rate may not be such a mystery in the end. Perhaps what [these officers] have done is the equivalent of repairing the broken window.” In other words, the very small efforts by the police led ultimately to very large results and caused crime to drop markedly. It’s hard for us to believe that such heavenly results such as radical drops in crime can come from such humble efforts like fixing windows. Yet that turned out to be exactly the case.
And this, Jesus says, is the case with him. Through this humble, lowly, nobody God would do the kind of heavenly things that would change the world. Bread that could transform our lives came in his very humble packaging. It was packaging so humble and lowly that some of the Jewish leaders dismissed it. There’s no way, they thought, that anything heavenly on earth is going to happen through someone like Jesus. Yet that’s exactly what Jesus promises at the end of John 6.
And at the beginning of John 6, Jesus illustrates this principle. Something heavenly also happens at the beginning of John 6. There’s a group of thousands of people. We’re not sure how many. We know for sure there are five thousand men. But they’ve got their families with them—wives and children. There must be ten or fifteen thousand people. They are out in a remote wilderness. They are far away from the nearest home or inn. And they are hungry.
And Jesus is going to feed them. They are going to have a heavenly feast. It’s going to be more than they can handle. Jesus is going to prepare a table so overflowing that even after thousands of people go through the buffet line, twelve of Jesus’ closest friends are going to pick up the leftovers, and all twelve will have a basket full. That’s the kind of feast Jesus is about to prepare. One of Jesus’ followers actually calculates the cost of the banquet. He estimates that it would cost eight to twelve months of paychecks to cater the food. This will be a heavenly feast.
But how is Jesus going to provide this feast? Here is how John describes it: 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9″There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. (John 6:8-13 ESV) Andrew finds a boy. Notice that the boy has no name. He’s just “a boy.” He’s just a face in the crowd. And this unnamed boy has in his possession five barley loaves and two fish. Barley is a bread made for the poor. They cannot afford the normal wheat. So they purchase barley bread. This boy is from a poor family. Thus, this is not just a boy with a school lunch, like a nine year old with a Lunchables, or a ten year old with a sack filled with slices of leftover pizza, a cold Coke, and two Twinkies. This is a boy from a poor family carrying a poor boy’s lunch—a jelly sandwich (no peanut butter—that’s too expensive) and a small slice of spam. That’s it. There could hardly be a more humble meal. In fact, Andrew looks at it and says, “what are they for so many?” In other words, how would something so humble lead to something so heavenly? Andrew doubts that anything will come from this humble boy and his humble meal.
Yet that’s exactly what happens. Jesus takes the barley bread, gives thanks for it, and distributes it. Jesus takes the dried fish, gives thanks for it, and distributes it. The thousands and thousands and thousands of people eat, John says, “as much as they wanted.” John says they ate “their fill.” They didn’t just snack. This wasn’t just hors devours. This was a stomach stretching meal. Remember—these are hungry people. These are people stuck out in the wilderness. They’d probably eat bark if they could find it. When Jesus hands out this bread and fish, they probably pounce on it like hungry dogs on a bone. They eat and eat and eat. They eat until they are filled. Even then, the disciples are able to fill twelve baskets with leftovers. Jesus takes this humble meal from a humble boy and does something heavenly with it.
And this miracle acts as an illustration for what Jesus then speaks about at the end of John 6. Through this humble son of Joseph whom the Jewish leaders write off as a home town boy who will never amount to anything God’s going to deliver bread from heaven and fulfill every person on the planet. The humble boy helps illustrate how God will use humble Jesus to do something heavenly on earth.
And together the two stories point to a general truth: Something heavenly can result from something humble. Jesus is saying, “This is how God works. From Old Testament forward, this is how God works. He takes something humble and does something heavenly through it. He takes someone humble and does something heavenly through them.
I’ll bet this has been true in your life. Think for a moment about the people who have had the greatest influence on your life. Those who were most influential in key decisions and key moments. Those who bear much responsibility for where you are or who you are today. How many of these key influencers were celebrities or people with great fame? For many of us, the key influencers in our lives were ordinary and average people. Lowly people. Humble people. I think of Coach Coleman—my football coach in my 1A school; Marlon McWilliams—preacher for a church of 20 in a small town; Gary Cox—a high school senior in a class of less than 30; Marie Cope—the old postmaster of a small town; and Byron Fike—a campus minister in a church of less than 600. None of these were famous. None were widely known outside their small circles. Yet they greatly influenced my life and helped me choose directions or make decisions that shaped who I am. God so often does the heavenly through the humble.
Author Mitch Albom describes his book The Five People You Meet in Heaven in this way:[3] It’s story of an old man who doesn’t think he matters much in life. He dies when he’s 83 years old trying to save a little girl from an accident at the pier where he works. He wakes up in a form of heaven where there are five people waiting for him—one from his childhood, one from his war years, and on and on, to tell him about a moment that they shared with him that changed their lives forever and him forever. By the time he’s done meeting these people, this nothing life that he thought he led on earth he finds out was actually very significant. It’s a message I hope for people who don’t think they matter very much…
This, too, is a message for people who don’t think they matter very much. Jesus is saying, “In the eyes of many in the world, I’m just a poor little unnamed boy with a poor boy’s lunch. But God’s the kind of God who can take that kind of unimpressive figure and feed the world. He’s done that throughout history. He did it with me. He did it with this little boy. He can do the same through you.”
[1] http://www.wesmcb.com/wallow/0619112000wallowupdate.pdf.
[2] http://www.gladwell.com/1996/1996_06_03_a_tipping.htm.
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNXGDZAHDrA&feature=related
