Ichthys (Fish)

Matthew 14:13-21

Ichthys is the ancient Greek word for fish.  Fish is important to the early church.  Not only the feeding of thousands with a few fish, the first disciples were fishermen who Jesus told would fish now for people. The resurrected Jesus makes a coal fire breakfast of fish, when he tells them to cast net on the other side of the boat and they miraculously catch 153 fish, and Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves Him, and tells Peter to feed and care for His Sheep.  Today the cross has become the greatest symbol of Christianity, but in the first century it was still in use to kill criminals, including Christians.  The fish became the most used symbol.  The story of Jonah was also very important to early Christians and my favorite was the idea that followers of “the way” were little fish because they were born in the baptismal water.

Those reasons above would be enough to use ichthys as the symbol of the movement, but it was also an acrostic for Jesus Christ God’s Son Savior (in the ancient Greek).  To remind you an acrostic is a word that the letters of the word are the first letters of the words, and in this case a wonderful saying that demonstrates who is Jesus.  This was known and thus when they saw a fish they knew that others believed Jesus Christ God’s Son Savior, just as we now see it on the back of cars and business cards. 

As for this scripture, Jesus has the disciples feed over 5,000 people.  Amazing.  I would love to had been there, but I did have an experience that makes me understand what the disciples were feeling and thinking.  I will share with you that experience.  I was in Jamaica leading a short-term mission trip.  Our goal was to develop relationships with other Christians as we helped their church.  Specifically put a new metal roof on top of their grade school, tile a bathroom, create a playground, and run a 5 day Vacation Bible School. 

Each day after the VBS we would have lunch in the fellowship building, where we had the children.  We would clear the room of anyone that was not of our mission team.  We had to, we thought, we had limited resources for lunch and we especially had to make sure all of our team was well fed and well hydrated.  The first two days we easily cleared the room of everyone but the team for lunch and we dined on either pork, chicken, or curried goat.  However, on the third day the kids asked if we could perhaps try Jamaican Patties and sure enough someone arrived early with enough for our team to have 1 1/2 patties.  However, the room was not cleared at that time, in part because lunch arrived early, I and the other leader were tired, and the people were more confortable with us.  The other pastor and I tried to clear the room, we wanted our team to feel confortable as they ate and we had less food then other days.  But someone forgot to cancel the orders of pork, chicken, and curried goat, which arrived at the normal time.  Well us pastors kept on our perceived duty we were supposed to protect the mission team.  Now we had our lunch and the addition of a patty (and a few extra).  We wanted to help these people but we thought it was important for our team to be well nourished.

Well then there was Dylan.  Dylan was the youngest member of our team, whose father was on the roof each day.  Dylan though decided to be part of the VBS team, and in reality he was the only American participant of VBS.  He would help when you told him something specific to do, but he was generally just one of the kids (which if you remember our goal was to create relationships, and he was doing just that).  Well Dylan got up and grabbed one of the Styrofoam containers of chicken and offered it to a woman, who was just hanging around but was not asking for food.  Dylan heard Jesus say, “you give them something to eat.”  Dylan knew Jesus can feed 5,000 plus with just five loaves and two fish, that we could certainly feed all the people in that room.  We realized that we leaders were resisting the the command “They need not go away.”  And while I have had many confusions on mission trips with food, I never had a third lunch arrive, but sure enough on this day another greater amount of patties arrived.  We needed to find people to take this food. 

What a wonderful lesson that experience was, and I know who Jesus is via the acrostic of Ichthys, yet I need to remember what it means to be a Christian who follows Jesus the Christ God’s Son [our] Savior, so I remember an acrostic for fish; Fully I Savior’s Helper.  I know who Jesus is and I realize that I need fully give myself and He will provide.