This is the work of God, that you believe in the one whom he sent. After feeding the multitude, Jesus slipped away as was his custom to be alone in order to pray (he did not accompany the disciples on the boat). On the day that followed, he found himself thronged by a crowd that had spent the better part of the day looking for him. And when they found him, they did not hesitate to let him know that they had been looking for him. When Jesus came to realize that those who had been looking for him were part of the multitude he had fed the previous day, he seized upon the opportunity to teach them. For he recognized that the major motivation for their search was the miracle of the loaves that they had witnessed. He thus challenged them not to stop at the sign that they had witnessed but rather to proceed to the worker of the sign.
As a sign, the multiplication of the loaves had not been an end in itself. It pointed somewhere. It pointed to something. For them to come to the full understanding of the why and the how of the sign, they had to resist the temptation of wanting to camp at the sign. Consequently, he invited them to be interested on the performer of the sign. It was only by doing so that they would understand the multiplication of the loaves not as an isolated act but rather as part of Jesus’ entire ministry. The feeding of the hungry was part of the good news Jesus was proclaiming (cf. Luke 4:18ff). Interestingly, the crowd appeared to be impressed by Jesus’ invitation and inquired from him what they needed to do in order to see more of the mighty signs. “Believe in me,” Jesus told them. It was not the answer that they expected (as tomorrow’s gospel reading will clearly show), but it was the right one. Only by believing in Jesus can one perform mighty signs such as Jesus did.
Believing IN Jesus is quite different from believing Jesus. While believing Jesus is passive and external, b elieving IN Jesus is active and internal. Believing IN Jesus is not simply an assent of the will but rather of the whole self. One who believes IN Jesus lets the self be totally taken over by Jesus so much so that he/she becomes animated by the spirit of Jesus. It is only the one who is animated by the spirit of Jesus who can perform the works of God, for it would not be him/her doing the works but rather Jesus whose spirit he/she embodies.