Love and you will understand!

John 6:60-69

When many of his disciples heard what Jesus was saying about the bread of life, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 

Food for thought!

It is little wonder that the disciples found the discourse of Jesus, not hard to understand but hard to accept. The disciples understood very well that Jesus had been claiming to be the very life of God come down from heaven, and that no one could live this life or face eternity without submitting to him. Here we come upon a truth that re-emerges in every age. Time and again it is not the intellectual difficulty which keeps us from taking Christ serious; it is the height of Christ's moral demand. Humanly speaking, Christ's demands are just too much to accept; it is not easy to be a Christian. Christian living is a heroic living.

Unfortunately, like those first disciples of Jesus who, «turned back and no longer walked with him», many even today have turned back and no longer want to walk with Jesus. Many once disciples of Jesus have turned away because Jesus' teaching is getting harder and harder to listen to and observe.

Surprisingly, Jesus did not call back his disciples; he did not say to them, «Well, come back, let me soften my teaching, let me put it differently...». Jesus made a bad situation get worse when he offered to those who stayed behind the possibility of going too: «Do you want to go away as well?» It is as if he said, «If you too want to go, go». This is what Jesus is telling me and you: if we want to leave him, if we want to stop following him, we are free to do so. At our peril.

This is a passage instinct with tragedy, for in it is the beginning of the end. The gospel says, «For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him». He is referring to Judas Iscariot.

There is a terrible story about an artist who was painting the Last Supper. It was a great picture and it took him many years. As model for the face of Christ he used a young man with a lovely face. Bit by bit the picture was filled in and one after another the disciples were painted. The day came when he needed a model for Judas whose face he had left to the last. He went out and searched in the lowest haunts of the city and in the dens of vice. At last he found a man with a face so depraved and vicious as matched his requirement. When the painting of Judas was at an end the man said to the artist: «You painted me before». «Surely not,» said the artist. «O yes,» said the man, «I sat for your Christ.» In other words, the years had brought terrible deterioration to this man.

The years can be cruel to us. They can take away our ideals and our enthusiasms and our dreams and our loyalties and our love and our faith and our beauty. They can leave us with a life that has grown smaller and not bigger. They can leave us with a heart that is shrivelled instead of one expanded in the love of Christ. There can be a lost loveliness in life--God save us from that!

This story almost ended on a sad ending, had Peter not scored in the 90th minute. «Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.» It was just such a situation as this that called out the loyalty of Peter's heart. To him the simple fact was that there was just no one else to go to. Jesus alone had the words of life.

Peter's loyalty was based on a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. There were many things he did not understand; he was just as bewildered and puzzled as anyone else. But there was something about Jesus for which he would willingly die. In the last analysis Christianity is not a philosophy which we accept, nor a theory to which we give allegiance. It is a personal response to Jesus Christ. It is the allegiance and the love which a man gives because his heart will not allow him to do anything else.

Before we go! Did you notice that Peter said, «We believe and have come to know» and not «we have come to know and believe»? In other words, believing comes first, then second comes knowing; it is first faith then understanding. Not vice versa. If you believe Jesus, you will understand what he says. If you love Jesus, you will know what he teaches.

It is the same every time. If you believe in someone you understand the person; if you love the person you will know what they are doing. If you hate the person you will hate whatever the person is and does and say. As they say, the world is full of beauty when the heart is full of love.