Loyal Despair

Peter – Loyal Despair

John 6.52-71

I don’t know if you ever get angry with Christians who are just always having a great time with the Lord?  You know the sort of people I mean?  They are always having some deep spiritual experience.  God is always so near and so real to them.  Their quiet times are amazing – in fact they have their very own personal burning bush in their garden.  I know I caricature them some but you know what I mean.  The sort of people who are always singing ‘If you are happy and you know it clap your hands.’  But for the rest of us mere mortal Christians what happens when life really sucks.  What happens when life hits you with its full force and you are nearly flattened by something?  What happens to the faith of the parents sitting at the bedside of a child who is dying of an incurable disease?  The husband or wife who watches dementia slowly steal their life’s partner from them?  Where do the young couple turn when the doctor says ‘I am sorry …’ and he proceeds to tell them all their hopes of a family are gone? Those situations are by far the more common experience of us all than the mountain top experience with God.   I want to look at a second confession of Peter of Christ – but this time the context is one of despair. Read John 6.

In John 6.22-25 we read that this the day after Jesus has fed the 5000 and walked on water to save Peter and the other disciples.  We read the crowd search out Christ in Capernaum and verse 59 tells us that they find him in the synagogue, pretty near to Peter’s house.  In verses 26 following Jesus knows why they have come – because he fed them physical food and he challenges them to seek spiritual nourishment.  He teaches them all about how he is the Bread of Life and how feeding on his body and blood by faith will bring them eternal life.  He taught this publicly in the synagogue – this teaching he did not hide away.  In the gospel of John this is the great turning point in the popularity of Christ.  From chapter 1 to this teaching on the Bread of Life Christ has been a popular figure, with an ever growing number of disciples and followers.  As of now the number is dramatically reduced and the antagonism towards him increases – ultimately leading to the Cross.  So that is the context of the verses.

Consequences

Look at verse 60 – READ.  Jesus has just finished his discourse on his body and blood and the necessity to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life.  As an aside let me just say that at this point he is not speaking of the Lord’s Supper – why would he teach on something that he had not as yet introduced to his disciples.  He is speaking here of that continuing intimate fellowship with himself by faith which is required for salvation and spiritual growth.  Look at the reaction of those disciples who heard this sermon, remember it is not just the 12 spoken of here.  When we read those words we may be tempted to think that the people had difficulty understanding what he has just preached.  However, we would be wrong.  The Greek is the word ‘skeleros’ – which speaks of ‘difficult to accept or tolerate.’  It was not that the words of Christ were hard to understand, they were not.  In preaching about the Passover Lamb and in saying that he was the sacrifice of a new covenant his hearers understood clearly what he was implying and applying to himself.  They did not find it hard to understand but hard to accept.  They knew and understood what he was saying  - he was claiming to be the very means of life, of eternal life.  He was claiming that he came from God and would one day return to God the Father.  It was plain.  It was clear.  It was heard and it was understood.  It was their hearts and not his words which were hard.  They could not, they refused, to accept or tolerate what he had said about himself and their need of him.  You see the challenge then is the same as now – not that the Words of Christ are hard to understand, they are not.  It is that the claims of Christ are hard to accept or tolerate because of the sin of our hearts.  The problem is not intellectual, nor comprehension but moral.

G K Chesterton said ‘It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting but that it has been found difficult and left untried.’

You see they ask one another ‘who can accept this teaching?’  The clear implication is that they cannot.  And they follow this up by asking ‘who can listen to it?’ – meaning who can appreciate what is being said here and in so doing take it in.  That is the challenge for them is ‘who will obey this teaching?’

Well if we READ verse 61 we realise that Christ has understood the murmurings of their hearts the whole time he was preaching this sermon to them.  He did not need them to voice their grumbles because as John has already stated in 2.24-5 Christ knew all men intimately.  In response to their grumbles Jesus asks a simple but profoundly revealing question:  Do you take offence at this?  The answer is of course ‘Yes.’  What was it that they took offence to?  They took offence that Christ taught that he alone was the means of life and the means of eternal life.  The took offence at the teaching that said you cannot face life without Christ and you will be lost for all eternity if you face death without him.  They took offence that he taught that he had come from heaven, from the Father’s side and that one day he would return.  They took offence, not at the miracles, they followed him because of those, but at the Word of God.  It was his teaching that they took offence at.

Well Christ then throws out a challenge to them.  If you take offence at my teaching how much more offensive will the Cross, the Resurrection and the Ascension be to you all?  If they could not accept his teaching how would they accept his death on the Cross?  If they failed to accept that how would they ever embrace his resurrection and ascension?  These would be the vindication, the verification and the validation of his words which they have taken offence at. 

So what is the consequence of his teaching?  Well READ at verse 66 .    Many of his disciples turn back and cease to walk with him.  Stop right there for a moment.  Listen carefully to exactly what is said here – READ verse 66.  This is the beginning of the end – at one time men flocked to follow him and now they turn their backs on him.

Turned back – John does not say they turned away or drifted away but they deliberately turned back.  Up to this point they had followed wherever he had led them but now, in light of what he had just taught about himself being the Bread of Life and the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood for eternal life, they turn back.  They positively turned and went back the way they came.

No longer walked with him – you know I think these are some of the saddest words of the NT.  The very thought that people who once walked alongside Christ could turn back and no longer walk with him just moved me to tears.  From the dawn of Creation mankind was made to walk with God. Is that not the revelation of Genesis 1 and 2, pre-fall and the entry of sin into the creation?  We were made to walk with God in intimate fellowship and community.  How could these people walk away from Christ?  The very words imply that they once walked with him – no longer walked with him.  John wants us to clearly understand that what was once their experience they now did the very opposite to.  

Having seen them walk away Jesus now turns to his disciples and asks them a question? (verse 67).  The question expects the answer ‘No!’  Here again the disciples are given an opportunity to confirm their faith in him.  They have a stark choice before them at this moment:  Do we go with the crowd and turn back, walk away?  Or Do we remain and follow him, even when all around us say it is foolish to do so?  You know the choice hasn’t changed much in 2010 years has it?  The choice for the 12, and us:  To follow Christ when everyone else deserts him?  To follow even though there may be no companions on the road with us?

Good old Peter – here he speaks up again, another confession of Christ.  Look at what he says – READ verse 68-69. 

Lord, where would we go?  Peter knows that the hunger of his soul could and would not be satisfied anywhere else.  Peter knows there is nothing on this earth, there is nothing man can offer which satisfies the hunger, the longing of the soul like Christ Jesus.  Where would he go?  Who could satisfy like Christ?  To whom would we go? – you alone are the WAY.

You have the words of eternal life.  All this world has to offer ends in death, Lord.  You alone can give life, eternal life because you alone are the LIFE.

We have believed and come to know you are the Holy One of God – you alone are the TRUTH.

In these two verses Peter tells Christ why they remain and the consequences if they go somewhere else.  They remain because there is no other means of salvation or source of life.  They do not go anywhere else because all else is death compared to knowing Christ Jesus.  In the midst of the great desertion by the rest of the disciples of Christ these 12 remain.  Yet when you read verses 70-71 you realise that even amongst the 12 who remain there is yet one who does not believe what Simon has just confessed of Christ. 

Jesus knows this and he speaks of it to the 12.  I wondered why Christ did that?  After all their faith had already been shaken by so many turning their backs and walking away – the last thing they needed was more bad news about those who had stayed.  The only conclusion I can come to is that Christ wanted to warn them that even thought their faith had enabled them to cling to him when the many deserted yet another testing time would arise.  One which would test their faith further because from the midst of this small band of disciples would emerge one who would betray their Master and in so doing give him up to death on a cross.  Judas appears to remain unmoved by these words of Christ.  Their faith no doubt was  discouraged by the large number of disciples who deserted Christ because of his teaching but they must prepare themselves for an even greater discouragement and test of allegiance when one of their loyal band would betray him.

Sometimes it is not that we do not understand the gospel but that we cannot accept what it demands.  G K Chesterton is so right – you have not tried it and found it wanting but found it difficult and left it untried.  For some people read this post the truth is that the claims and teaching of Christ is too hard for you.  It is not that you do not understand it but that your heart is hard and you cannot accept it.  You have turned your back and are walking away from the only means of life and eternal life.  Today it may well be that something else attracts you more than Christ – hear this it will lead to death, it is death and it is the instrument of death to you soul.

Some reading this have followed Christ for a long time but a moment of crisis has arisen in your life and you are tempted  to turn back and to walk with Christ no longer.  Friends listen to me – I beg you don’t listen to the voice which says something other than Christ is the answer.  I beg you don’t listen to the voice which says that something or someone other than Christ will bring satisfaction to your soul.  That is the voice of death.  Some of you  have actually started to turn your back, you have started to walk away – I call upon you in the name of Christ to repent and to come home.  Some of you are the Prodigals.  You once lived in the Father’s house but you have been living in the far country for a long time and you find yourself in the pig mire of sin – come home – your Father is standing and waiting for you to come home.  No one, and nothing can satisfy your soul like Jesus.  No one but Christ has life and eternal life.  All else is death to your soul.

Some of you  are not unlike Judas.  You want to remain close to Christ but you are not a disciple.  Others might believe you are but Christ and you know the truth.  You are really an interested spectator on the journey.  You are not a deserter but you are not a disciple and Christ is speaking to you to make a choice – because one day all will be revealed.

Finally, I started this post speaking about tough times in life.  Those times when it feels like we have been punched in the solar plexus and the breath of life seems to have been knocked out of us.  Those times when we scream at God from the very depths of our souls: ‘Why? Why? Why?’  This is just such a moment for Peter and the other disciples.  The crowd are turning their backs on Christ – not in one’s or two’s but in their thousands.  12 remain – will their faith sustain them in the midst of this?  Will they continue to walk with Christ when everyone else is walking away?  For you and I there will come a moment when we have to make just such a choice concerning Christ?  We reach a point of decision:  What will you do?  Will you continue to follow even in the midst of the despair or will you turn your back and no longer walk with him because you cannot accept what he brings or teaches?  I pray that you will be like Simon and confess – to whom would we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.  We have believed and we know you are the Holy One of God.  Amen