According to John: Act 2, Scene 3 (Jesus Multiplies Bread, Walks on Water, and Cosplays as a Vampire)
Because of all that had happened, The Healer departed for the North Country, on the far side of Circle Lake, also known as Lake Tiberias, so named, of course, for the Emperor at the time.
Great multitudes appeared wherever he went, because they wanted to see with their own eyes the remarkable signs manifesting in those who were afflicted, distressed, and needy. It felt like a new creation was bursting forth. The Healer climbed a nearby mountain to retreat and rest with his devotees. Passover, one of the High Jewish Festivals, was about to begin.
The Healer looked up and saw the entire crowd of people climbing the mountain after him. He smiled and shook his head, directing a ludicrous question to Cowboy: “Is there any village nearby where we can purchase some bread to feed everyone?” The Healer wanted to see what Cowboy’s answer would be, because he already had something in mind.
“I’m sorry?” Cowboy replied, incredulous. “Between all of us here, we might have 200 denarii, and that’s not enough to buy enough for each person to have even a little!” Courage, Listener’s brother, was sitting nearby and overheard. “I saw a lad with a basket,” he offered timidly, “he has maybe five barley loaves and two small fishes — but that’s all the food I’ve seen. Certainly not enough for this crowd!” But Courage’s eyes locked onto The Healer’s, because he suspected he was up to something. The line of questioning was just too ridiculous.
Since it was a grassy area and relatively flat there, The Healer told his devotees, “have them all sit down.” So they all sat down, and the headcount was over 5,000 — and that was just heads of household! So The Healer took the lad’s cakes, pronounced the traditional Jewish blessing over them, and distributed them to his guests. Then he did the same with the fish. Everyone ate as much as they wanted to, and after such a hike, fathers, mothers, and children alike were famished! The Healer played joyous host, dishing out the snacks until everyone was full. And when everyone was incapable of eating anymore, The Healer sent the devotees through the people, saying, “Gather up anything that is left over, so that nothing is wasted!”
The devotees went out with baskets, and filled 12 baskets with scraps of bread that were over and above what anyone was able to consume. When the people realized that The Healer had performed such a wonderful, miraculous sign, murmurs began to spread. “This is him — this must be the Great Prophet foretold to come!” The Healer got the inkling pretty quick that there was a movement rising in the crowd to try to seize him and forcibly declare him king, triggering yet another ill-fated insurrection attempt, and he was having none of it. He slipped off unnoticed deeper into the mountainside as the sun was beginning to go down, whispering to one of the devotees to make sure no one followed him.
The devotees dispersed the crowd by the time dusk arrived, and, since The Healer was still nowhere to be seen, they elected to go down to the boat on the lake and get back home to Village of Comfort, a short sail across the lake. before it got fully dark. About halfway across, the wind began to whip up in earnest, and now it was completely dark, the waters dangerously choppy. Suddenly somebody spotted a figure out on the dark waters— walking on the lake — and coming closer and closer. The men began to lose their minds in terror, thinking they were seeing some kind of a phantom or demon. The Healer called out to them then, his voice easily piercing through the howling of the wind, “I Am here! Do not let your hearts be troubled!”
Then they pulled him into the boat in bewildered joy and amazement, and the moment The Healer stepped foot in the boat, they felt the keel scrape up on sand, and they looked up to see the shore and lights of Village of Comfort, precisely where they had been heading.
The next day the crowd came together again at the base of the mountain, on the side of the lake where they had watched the devotees get into the boat — without The Healer. They knew there had only been one boat there, and that the devotees had left without The Healer. That morning, there were several boats in the area, so the people hired the boats to ferry them across to Village of Comfort.
Of course, they found him there, and when they did, they were very confused. “Rabbi, when did you arrive here?”
“If you are honest with yourselves,” he responded, “your incessant searching for me is not because you saw me do some sign or miracle, but because you are hungry, and I satisfied that hunger. Do not labor and strive after what does not satisfy and that will ultimately destroy you, but for the food that will satisfy and sustain you for the Life to Come. The Son of Adam will give you this food; on this Son alone has Adonai, the Great Creator of us all, placed their seal of approval.”
“What does Adonai require of us?” they replied in earnest.
The Healer responded, “this is what Adonai requires — deep faith and trust in the Word of Truth that Adonai has sent.”
“We need you to show us a sign, so we know that you are the one we should follow,” they replied. “What will you do to prove yourself to us? Our ancient fathers and mothers also ate bread in the desert — manna — just like the Scriptures say, “Adonai gave them Heavenly Bread to eat!”
“Here is the Truth,” The Healer said. “Moses did not give you Heavenly Bread, not really. That manna was still just food for the stomach. My Divine Parent is the one who sends the true Heavenly Bread. True Heavenly Bread is something that comes into the world from the Divine Realm and gives life and sustenance to everyone, to the whole world! Don’t you see?”
“Yes!” they cried. “Master, give us this Heavenly Bread now and always!”
“Open your eyes and look deeply into your own heart and find the I Am within,” The Healer said. “The I Am is the Life Bread. Follow the I Am, and never go hungry; place your trust fully in I Am, and never go thirsty, ever. But as I’ve said, seeing is not believing. You have beheld the I Am — Me, the Divine Oneness, and yet there is no trust. The Creator has given All to Me, and All will come to Me. Anyone who comes to the I Am will by no means be turned away.”
“Yes, I Am here from the Heavenly Realm, not to build up a following or stroke an ego, but to accomplish a mission. And this is the mission: that All would never be lost, but that they should stand up on the last day, awake and alive in the presence of Love. This is the mission of Adonai — our Father, our Mother, our Creator — that everyone would see, perceive, and experience the Human I Am made manifest in the Son, trust in the Son, and attain to the life of the World to Come. I will cause them to stand up, unashamed, awake, and alive, on the Last Day.”
The Healer’s countrymen began to murmur in disdain about these words he said: “I Am the Heavenly Bread.”
Some grumbled against him, “What is he talking about? We know this guy — we know his mother, his father is named Increase, isn’t he? — he is nothing special. Who does he think he is, saying ‘I came here from Heaven?’”
The Healer, aware of their grumbling, admonished them, “oh, stop it already. Do you really not get it? When Adonai draws someone to come into the I Am, they will follow, and I will raise them up in the End. Do not the prophets say, ‘All will be taught by Adonai’? If you knew your own Creator, Adonai, you would follow me. Only the One who is from the Divine Realm has ever beheld the face of Pure Divinity. Truly — if you trust in Adonai, you have attained to Eternity, to the Life to Come. Yes, I Am the Heavenly Bread. Manna is not Heavenly Bread, not really. Our ancestors ate the manna and died eventually, didn’t they? In the same way, merely keeping the words of Torah, also given in the wilderness, is not going to do you any good in the Life to Come. The I Am is the true Gift! The True Bread from Heaven, the Bread of Life, that manifests into our world from the Divine Realm, where everything is Love and Light. This Life of Light and Love is available to anyone who eats of this Bread — the Life of the Age to Come. And the Bread of Life that is given is the very flesh of the I Am — a Body, given on behalf of the Life of the World.”
This last bit really set his countrymen off, and they began to argue amongst themselves, some of them taking him literally, saying, “Okay, this guy is certifiable — he’s going to give us his own flesh to eat?”
“Look inside your hearts and see the truth,” The Healer said. “The flesh and the blood of the Son of Adam is holy — it is the Wellspring of Life for us all! If you refuse to partake of this flesh and blood, there is no life in you at all. Anyone who eats My flesh and drinks My blood — the Eternal Flesh and Eternal Blood — has already attained to the Life to Come, and will stand up on the Last Day, because My flesh is True Flesh, and My blood is True Blood.”
“If you eat the Flesh of the I Am and drink the Blood of the I Am, I Am dwells in you, and you dwell in I Am. In the same way that the Living One sent Me, and My Life is through the Living One, so also the one who consumes the I Am will live through the I Am. The I Am is the Bread from the Divine Realm — it is not like the manna in the wilderness, which our ancestors consumed and still eventually died — that manna was a metaphor for the True Bread — the Bread that brings Life, and Life for All Time.”
This was all part of a derasha The Healer gave at the synagogue in Village of Comfort.
Many of his own devotees sat through the teaching and began to say, “this is an extremely difficult word — it’s very opaque. Who can possibly lay hold of it?”
The Healer, quite aware that they were struggling with it, said to them, “you think this is offensive and scandalous? Wait until you see the Son of Adam in his rightful place in the Divine Realm! The Spirit is the Life-Giver, the flesh is worthless. The Word I speak is both Spirit and Life. But even among you, my devotees, there are some that do not yet trust me.” From the start, The Healer had known who would take the path of trust, and who would abandon him. “This is the reason I said to you, ‘the only way someone can discover the I Am within is if the Divine One opens their eyes and grants them sight.”
After these things, many of his devotees disassociated themselves with him and began to disappear. The Healer asked The Twelve, the ones who remained, “will you also go?” Listener, aka The Rock, spoke for them all and said, “Master, where else would we go? Your words are life-giving, and speak to the Life of the Age to Come. And we have come to trust you — more than that, we have experienced you and know you on a deep level, your deep connection and Oneness with the Holy One.”
The Healer replied, “I did specifically choose you twelve, didn’t I? And yet even among you, one of you will slander and betray me.”
He was speaking of Praises, son of Listener the Sicarii, one of the twelve that would soon betray him.
