“Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” - Jesus, John 6:26
I did not come to Jesus for Jesus. I will make a bold assertion and say that you did not come to Jesus for Jesus either. The crazy thing about this passage in John’s gospel is not that Jesus speaks so directly, so much as it is the crazy circumstances that He is speaking into.
Jesus has been followed by a large number of people, as He is trying to get some time alone with His disciples and His Father. 5,000 men (potentially 20-25k if you include women and children) are needing food, so Jesus does something miraculous. Taking 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (likely closer in size to 5 wafers and 2 sardines) from a young boy, Jesus multiplies and feeds the entire crowd!
Place yourself on the side of this hill for a second and let the magnitude of this feat humble you briefly. You are hungry and you have been following this perceived country bumpkin of a Rabbi because you have heard, and possibly seen, some of the other-worldly things that He has done. Healing the untouchables and speaking with unmatched authority, you know this guy is a once-in-a-generation sage. He takes a boy’s snack and feeds an entire stadium’s worth of people. If you are a Jew, you cannot help but reminisce on your family history: as your ancestors were unilaterally saved from Egypt by the One True God, He provided bread and meat from heaven in order to sustain His people (see Exodus 16).
Blinded by your own experience of insane bread from heaven, you blindly forget how the Israelites responded the last time. They do not trust God’s provisions enough to obey His parameters and they quickly begin grumbling to go back into slavery in Egypt so that they can eat and drink what they want with some degree of earthly security. The Israelites longed for slavery they understood over freedom that required dependent faith in their God. They became focused on what He provided, rather than trusting in Him. They saw the bread from heaven and ignored the living bread - the Provider of bread.
After the people are filled to capacity with physical food Jesus sends His closest friends across the sea. He hears the crowd’s grumblings and their insatiable desire for more. Knowing their hearts, Jesus perceives that they want to take Him by force and make Him king. They want more of what He has offered. What they don’t realize is that He is already King, and His rule looks nothing like what they desire. They like the perks that He produces, but have completely missed who He is and what He ultimately offers.
The next day, the crowd tracks Jesus down after a balmy nighttime stroll atop the water. They come to Him collectively asking where He had gone. His response is not to brag about how He traversed waves like a water spider, nor is it to ask them for their order, like a waiter. Instead, He cuts directly to the heart. After these devoted followers leave everything behind in order to seek Him out, He points out that these people who want to make Him famous have no true interest in Him. They are zealous, fanatical followers, but He is not the object of their fanaticism… He is a means to their own end. He is the waggle of a genie's wand and a saucer that delivers their desired delicacies.
Jesus has no issue spearing through the membrane of their heart to realize their actual desires: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” (John 6:26)
You and I are no different from the beneficiaries of Jesus’ miracles. We are brought to Him first because we know He has something to offer us. Whether it is peace, success, proximity towards a King, or answers to metaphysical questions, we come to Jesus with an agenda and a want. Your introduction to Jesus may have been more or less pure in motivation than mine, but all of us have come to Him for something other than Him initially. Isaiah predicted Him as a man that “had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2). We want what He offers, but what He offers is Himself.
Jesus will not continue to allow us to have His good things without Him, though. At least not for very long. Why? Because bread grows moldy, gold and silver rust, and material blessings grow old very quickly. One of the very sweetest things about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that He offers us something infinitely greater than what we desire: instead of simple access to the authority and palace of a King, we are invited into His family. In lieu of a cosmic vending machine, God offers us the source of all of our needs.
Let me say it again: I did not come to Jesus for Jesus and neither did you. Lucky for us, God has offered us something better than our own desires. C.S. Lewis had an insightful perspective on this reality when He said, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
It is possible to have an interaction with Jesus and totally miss the mark. On a single day, thousands of people experienced this reality. It is feasible that many of us have encountered many of the good things that Jesus offers, while completely missing Him. In fact, it is almost a guarantee that each of us has, at one time or another, chased down the God of Heaven and Earth and completely missed Him for His benefits.
In light of Jesus’ words and this story in John 6, let me ask you one simple question, why are you seeking after Jesus today?