Everything in the Bible is connected–all water leads to other water, all bread leads to other bread.

The symbols are intertwined and all meaning is the purvey of God. God uses the Bible and its narrative voices to call out to us.

Hello! I’m here! I love you.

So when Jesus tells the man not to go back to the village I wondered why?

Sometimes people who want to follow Jesus are commanded by him to return to their communities. Some are enjoined not to. This man is in the latter group. Why?

bethsaida is a city with some history. It means house of fish. Hometown to several disciples, it was also a Geshurite city. Absalom’s mother Maacah was a Geshurite princess.

Jesus fed the four thousand near Bethsaida. But he also rebuked them. The religious leaders were resistant to him and did not trust him.

Why should they? He was a dangerous man. An iconoclast. Don’t go back, he says. I trust him but still long to know these two things–

why? and…
what next?

What next, Lord?