Tag: Andrew

Episode NT15 – Feeding the Hungry

tale2tell original Bible Stories series – New Testament

Based on John chapter 6 verses 1 to 15

Feeding the Hungry

‘My name’s Andrew, I’m Simon Peter’s brother and I’ve been following Jesus since He started His work here. It’s been an amazing time. I’ve seen things you couldn’t even imagine. The sick being healed, the demon-possessed being freed and even the dead brought back to life.’

‘But even though Jesus did such amazing things, He was always concerned that the people heard His message. There was an urgency within Him that everyone should know that the Kingdom of God was coming and that they should be ready by turning away from all their sinful and selfish ways and turning back to God.’

‘One day, Jesus called the twelve of us together and spoke to us. As He spoke, He gave us authority to make evil spirits come out of people and to heal every disease! Then He told us, ‘Go into the surrounding towns and villages, heal their sick and tell all the people that the Kingdom of God is about to come. Don’t take anything with you, no bag, no food and no money. And when you enter a village don’t stay in different houses, stay in just one house. And if the people in that village refuse to accept the message you bring them, then as you leave shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.’’

‘So we did what Jesus asked us to do. With the power He’d given us we healed the sick and we cast out demons, and most important of all, we told the people the message Jesus had given us to pass on. ‘The Kingdom of God is coming.’’ (PAUSE)

‘When we came back we told Him of all the incredible things that’d happened, and Jesus decided it’d be wise for us to get away from the huge crowds that seemed to dog His tracks, and spend some time together alone. There were so many people constantly coming and going that we couldn’t even find time to eat! So we got into a boat and started to travel across the great lake once again.’

‘What we didn’t know, as we set sail and headed for a more peaceful area, was that some of the crowd had seen us go. And can you believe it, they ran round the lake to catch up with us, and as they went through each village, they’d point us out on the lake to the people of the village saying, ‘Look, you see that boat out there? That’s Jesus in there!’ But we didn’t know anything about this as we headed for a nice quiet spot a safe distance from the crowds, or so we thought!’

‘We saw them even before we landed. A huge crowd all wanting to see Jesus. The rest of us couldn’t believe it and to be honest we were – how should I put this – less than impressed. But not Jesus, He saw them for what they were, like sheep without a shepherd – needing to be taught and to hear from Him. So in His compassion He taught the great crowd many things and we all stayed there a long time.’

‘My tummy started to rumble about mid-afternoon. And by late afternoon we began to realise that if we didn’t get this massive crowd shifted soon there could be some real trouble. We’d come to such an isolated place, how were the people going to find food? We needed to send them on their way so that they could reach the villages and towns and farms in time to buy some food for themselves. So we went to Jesus, ‘Jesus,’ we said, ‘this is a pretty remote place and time’s going by. We think you should send the people away now so that they can get to the nearby farms and villages to buy themselves some food.’’

‘It seemed a reasonable enough suggestion to us, but can you imagine our astonishment when Jesus turned to us and said, ‘No, don’t send them away, you feed them!’’

‘‘What?’ we replied, ‘that’s impossible. It would cost a small fortune to feed this massive crowd! Not only that, but where are we going to find that much food in a place like this?’’

‘‘Well, how much food do you have?’ Jesus asked. ‘Go away and find out.’’

‘We didn’t have any food ourselves and to be honest we didn’t really know how to go about finding out how much food there was. As we stood there wondering what to do, a young lad came up to me. ‘Mister,’ he said. ‘I heard you talking to Jesus about needing some food. When my mum heard that Jesus was nearby and that I wanted to come and see Him for myself, she made me a packed lunch. It’s not much, but Jesus can have it if it’ll help.’ I smiled at him and chuckled to myself – his ‘packed lunch’ consisted of five barley bread rolls and a couple of fish!’

‘But even so I took it to Jesus. ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘there’s this young lad here with five barley bread rolls and a couple of fish. What good that’ll do amongst such a huge crowd as this I don’t know.’’

‘One of those things we’d come to learn about Jesus was that you couldn’t always predict what He’d do. If it had been me, I don’t think I’d have thought twice about the young lad’s packed lunch. But Jesus smiled at the lad and accepted the packed lunch from him. Then he told us to make the people sit down on the grass in groups of fifty or a hundred.’

‘Taking the small packed lunch in His hands, Jesus looked up towards heaven and asked God’s blessing on the food. Then He started to break up the barley bread rolls and hand the pieces to us to pass on to the crowd. He just carried on breaking the bread into pieces. On and on He went, and then He started to break the fish up and pass them on to us to pass out to the crowds. Again and again we handed out all He’d given us and went back to Him to collect more. And still He carried on passing out the bread and fish, in fact, He didn’t stop passing out the bread and fish  until every single person had eaten all they wanted! And when I say every single person, we worked out just how many men there were in that crowd, excluding all the women and children. There were five thousand! Goodness knows how many people there must have been including all the women and children.’

‘When the people had finished eating all they wanted, Jesus sent the twelve of us around to pick up the leftover food. Each of us picked up a complete basket full of left-overs – twelve baskets full of bits and pieces that had come from five small barley loaves and two fish!’

Episode NT6 – Water at a Wedding!

tale2tell original Bible Stories series – New Testament

Based on John chapter 1 verse 29 to chapter 2 verse 11

Water at a Wedding!

‘Look’, said John as Jesus walked towards him. ‘There’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I didn’t know He was the One, but my work of baptising people was to point to Him! You see, God told me that when I saw the Holy Spirit come down and rest upon someone, that person would be the One I was waiting for. I didn’t know it was Jesus until I saw it happen – the Spirit of God came down and rested on Him! He’s the One you’re looking for. He’s the One who’ll baptise with the Holy Spirit – I saw this happen to Jesus, so I can say with absolute certainty that He is the Son of God,’

Next day as John stood with two of his followers, Jesus walked by. ‘Look,’ said John. ‘The Lamb of God!’ At this, the two followers turned and started to follow Jesus. When Jesus looked round and saw them he asked, ‘What do you want?’

‘Teacher,’ they replied, ‘where’re you staying?’

‘Come and see,’ He replied. And they stayed with Him for the rest of the day. (PAUSE)

One of those two followers was a man named names Andrew who had a brother called Simon Peter. As soon as he could Andrew rushed off to find his brother. ‘Guess what?’ he said. ‘We’ve found the Messiah! Come on, come and meet Him.’ So Andrew took Simon to meet Jesus who looked closely at him. ‘You’re names Simon, son of John,’ He said. ‘But you will be called Peter.’

Next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee, and as he prepared to go He found Philip. ‘Come on,’ He said. ‘Come and be my disciple.’ And then, just like Andrew had before, Philip rushed off to find his friend Nathanael. ‘We’ve found the person Moses and all the prophets wrote about long long ago.’ He said, ‘His name’s Jesus, Son of Joseph, from Nazareth!’

‘Nazareth!’ Nathanael answered. ‘Nazareth? Surely nothing good can come from that place?’

‘Come and see for yourself,’ Philip answered, and took Nathanael to Jesus. And as they approached Jesus He looked at Nathanael and said, ‘Now here’s an honest man – a true son of Israel.’

This took Nathanael by surprise. ‘But you don’t know me.’ He replied.

‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip came to you.’ Jesus replied.

This was mind-blowing for Nathanael. How could Jesus have known about him if He wasn’t who Philip had just said He was, and so he spluttered out. ‘T-T- Teacher, you really are the Son of God – the king of Israel!’

Jesus smiled. ‘You believe that just because I told you I saw under the fig tree? Well, you’re going to see far greater things than that!’ He said. ‘One day you’ll see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down upon the Son of Man.’ (PAUSE)

Not long after this Jesus and His close followers, called His disciples, were invited to a wedding celebration in the small village of Cana. Mary, Jesus’ mother, was also there as a guest. Now, in those days wedding feasts could last anything up to a week – so they had to be planned well in advance – so the host didn’t run out of food and wine for his guests. To run out of things would be a great embarrassment to the bridegroom who’d find it hard to live down –a very bad start to your married life! Now, maybe they hadn’t counted on Jesus and His disciples turning up, or maybe they’d just made a terrible mistake! But whatever the cause, the wine supply began to run low and was in danger of running out completely!

And as it ran out, Mary called Jesus to one side for a chat. ‘Son, they’ve run out of wine!’

‘How does that concern you and me?’ He asked. ‘ My time hasn’t come yet.’ (P)

Mary new her son, and she knew that He could help. But Jesus wanted Mary to understand that the power God had given Him wasn’t simply to get His own family out of trouble. It was given to show people who He was and how much God loves them. But instead of getting cross and upset at His reply, Mary understood that she should leave it with Jesus and trust Him to do whatever was best and right. And so turning to the servants she said. ‘Whatever He tells you do, just go ahead and do it.’ And at that, she left.

Now, it was customary in those days for the people at the wedding feast to wash their hands before they ate. To do this properly, special stone jars, each capable of holding anything from 75 litres of water upwards, were made available to the guests. As there were lots of guests at the celebration, there were six of these stone jars standing close by. ‘Fill those jars with water.’ Jesus told the servants. And just as Mary had told them, the servants did as He asked, filling each to the brim.

When the jars had been filled Jesus called one of the servants over and said. ‘Now fill a cup from one of those jars and take it to the master of ceremonies.’

The servant wasn’t at all sure about this – he was going to give the most important person at the celebration – a cup of water! But because Mary had said to do it, and because there wasn’t anything else to serve, the servant dipped the cup into the filled stone jar and took it to the master of ceremonies.

‘Thank you,’ said the man as he took the cup. ‘I was wondering where all the wine had gone!’ (P) The servant didn’t say a word but stood there staring at the man as he put the cup to his lips and began to drink. And as he tasted the liquid, a look of surprise came over his face and then looking first at the servant and then at the contents of the cup, and then at the bridegroom, he called him over for a chat. ‘A word in year friend.’ He called.

When the bridegroom’d come over the master of ceremonies took him to one side. ‘Usually,’ he began. ‘A host will serve the best wine first – when it matters when everyone’s able to appreciate the taste. And then, when most people have had a few drinks and aren’t so able to notice the difference, the host brings out the cheaper wine. But not you! For reasons best known only to yourself you keep the finest wine until now!’

The servant could hardly believe his ears. The water that had been put into the stone jars had become wine! And not just any old wine, but the finest of all wines! And as Jesus’ disciples learned of this, they believed even more strongly that He was the Son of God.