“Jesus said, ‘Have the people sit down.’ There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.’ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.” (John 6:10-15 NIV)
It has been said that everyone will eventually get his or her 15 minutes of fame. It seems fewer people are willing to wait. According to a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, over half of 18-25-year-olds said one of their two main life goals was to be famous. The other was to be wealthy. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-09-gen-y-cover_x.htm)
That “15 minutes” just happened to high school senior Emma Sullivan, who tweeted during a speech by Kansas’s governor Sam Brownback. Brownback’s office considered it inappropriate and offensive and reported it to Ms. Sullivan’s school principal. When asked to apologize, she, with her parents backing, refused. That’s when the media frenzy began, and at last report, Emma had more than 10,000 followers on her Twitter account and numerous interviews with the national media.
Can you imagine the media frenzy around Jesus if modern day media had existed back in the 1st Century? The Twitterverse would blow up with every miracle. Someone would create a Facebook profile for Him and He would receive millions of friend requests. YouTube would have thousands of videos uploaded of Him teaching and performing miracles. And what would Jesus do? Probably walk away.
Of course, there was no social networking, as we understand it, in Jesus’ day, but news about Him did spread quickly. Crowds gathered wherever He went and many began calling for Him to be their political, as well as spiritual, leader. He easily could have had the following of the world as Satan promised Him in the desert (Matthew 4:8-9). Yet what did Jesus do when the crowds wanted to make Him king after miraculously feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish? He withdrew from them. And this wasn’t the only time. Jesus did this on a regular basis (Luke 5:16).
How interesting for a whole generation whose primary objective in life is to be wealthy and famous to come to terms with what it means to follow Jesus, who was materially poor and repeatedly shunned the limelight.
Perhaps today would be a good time to withdraw from social networking long enough to contemplate the implications of following Jesus. The 15 minutes of fame can wait.
© Jim Musser 2011
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