The Words of Eternal Life

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on March 26, 2023.  The Bible verses used are John 6:60-71.

            When Jesus was on earth, he said a lot of things.  He said a lot of things we like, but he said a lot of things we don’t like.  Sometimes they’re things we don’t understand.  Sometimes they’re things that seem, well, un-Jesus-like.  Sometimes they’re things we know are right, things we know we should do, but we just would rather not have to do them.  It’s not always easy to be a follower of Jesus.

            Just to give a few examples:  “Love your enemies”.  Do we do that?  Do we even want to?  I mean, seriously.  Think of someone you would consider to be your enemy.  If there’s no one in your personal life who you think of as an enemy, then think of terrorists or murderers or people bringing fentanyl across the border or whatever.  Do you love people like that?  Do we even want to love someone like that?

            “Do good to those who hate you.”  Do we do that?  Do we even want to?  I mean, there are times when I don’t even want to do good for people I like.  Now I’m supposed to good to people who hate me?  

            “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also.”  Does that even make sense?  That if someone hits us once, we should invite them to hit us again?  I mean, I could kind of understand Jesus saying don’t fight back, but don’t even do anything to protect ourselves?  Not only allow them to hit us again, but give them a target?  Why would we do that?

            And we could go on and on and on.  We say we believe in Jesus, and we do, but it’s hard to put all these things into practice.  It’s hard to actually live by the things Jesus said.  These teachings of Jesus are hard teachings.  They’re hard for us to accept.

            The thing is, that’s always been the case.  It was the case when Jesus as alive.  In our reading for tonight, Jesus has just given the crowd some hard teachings.  The crowd had a hard time accepting them.  Some of them did not accept them.  And because they could not accept Jesus’ teachings, they could not accept Jesus.  And we’re told, “Many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him.”

            Jesus understood why.  He knew these were hard teachings.  He knew they were hard for people to accept.  So He turns to His best friends, the twelve disciples, and asks, “You do not want to leave, too, do you?”

            I wonder if, when Jesus asked the question, He knew the answer.  He could have–after all, Jesus is Jesus.  He’s the divine Son of God.  He may well have known what the disciples would say.

            But the way this is written, it sounds to me like Jesus did not know.  Like Jesus thought maybe the disciples would leave Him.  After all, He knew He was going to be betrayed at some point.  He knew that, at some point, they were all going to leave Him.  Maybe He wondered if it would happen now.  Maybe He thought, this could be it.  This could be the time when I’m left all alone.

            I wonder if the disciples, themselves, considered leaving.  After all, everyone else was.  It’s always tempting to join the crowd.  And not only was Jesus giving them hard teachings, following Him was a pretty hard life, really.  Some of the disciples had been making a pretty good living before they started following Jesus.  Maybe they were tempted to go back to that life.  

            But Simon Peter stepped up.  And he made the famous statement:  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

            The decision the disciples had to make, the decision the crowd had to make, is the same decision you and I have to make.  Jesus gives us hard teachings.  Sometimes they’re hard for us to accept.  So, what are we going to do?  Are we going to leave?  Or are we going to stay with Jesus?

            Simon Peter asked “to whom shall we go?”  I wonder, to whom did the crowd go?  They left Jesus.  They had to go somewhere.  Where did they go?

            Some of them may have gone to the Pharisees, to the Rabbis, to the teachers of the law.  Some of them may have gone after false messiahs–they were some of those around back then.

            But I suspect most of them simply went back to their old lives.  They went back to what they had done before.  They went back home.  They went back to their jobs.  They went back to their families.  They did whatever they had done before they met Jesus.  

Basically, they went on with their lives as if nothing had happened.  And for them, nothing really had.  Maybe they thought about their time following Jesus once in a while.  Maybe they even had happy memories of it.  But it had not changed them in any way.  Following Jesus had made no impact on their lives whatsoever.

Essentially, those are the options we have, too.  We can find someone else to follow.  Or, we can just go about our business.  We can move along with our lives.  Maybe we think about Jesus once in a while.  Maybe we even come to church sometimes.  Maybe thinking of Jesus even gives us happy feelings.  But we don’t really allow Jesus to make any impact on our lives.

That’s a tempting choice.  It’s a choice a lot of people make.  But if we make that choice, we forget about the next thing Simon Peter said.  He said of Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life.”

Jesus has the words of eternal life.  No one else does.  We cannot find eternal life anywhere else.  We cannot find eternal life by following someone else.  We cannot find eternal life by just moving along with our lives.  We cannot find eternal life at home, or at our job.  We cannot find eternal life with our families.  That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with doing our jobs or loving our families–we should do that.  But doing that is not going to give us eternal life.  We can only find eternal life through following Jesus.

The crowd made the easy choice.  Simon Peter and the other disciples made the hard choice.  How did they do it?  How did they manage to make the hard choice to follow Jesus, rather than the easy choice of just going back home?

Because they truly believed what Simon Peter said.  “We have come to believe and to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

If we truly believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God, then we can make the hard choice to follow Jesus.  Because we know that it’s really not that hard of a choice.  It may be a hard choice in the short term.  It may require us to do things we’d rather not do in the short term.  But ultimately, it’s going to all be worth it.  

If we truly believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God, then we know He has the words of eternal life.  And if we truly believe that Jesus has the words of eternal life, then there’s nothing more important that hearing those words and following those words.  If we truly want eternal life, there is nowhere else to go but to Jesus.

In turning away, the crowd gave up their chance for eternal life.  That’s a sad thing to think about.  The chance for eternal life was right there, in front of them.  And they turned away from it.

That’s why Jesus says, so many times, that we need to hold firm to our faith until the end.  The crowd was following Jesus.  They thought they had faith.  But when it got hard, they turned away.  Their faith was not strong enough to keep them following Jesus when the choice got hard.  They had some faith, but they could not hold firm to their faith to the end.

What will our choice be?  Will we follow the crowd?  Will we follow Jesus for a while, thinking we have faith, but turn away when things get hard?  Or will we be like the disciples?  Will we trust that Jesus has the words of eternal life?  Will we believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God?  Will we hold firm to our faith until the end?

Jesus wants us to follow.  But He will let us go, if we choose to leave.  I’m sure Jesus was very sad when He saw the crowds leaving, turning away.  After all, Jesus knew, better than anyone, what the crowds were giving up.  He knew they were turning down their chance for eternal life.  

I wonder if He was tempted to do something to try to bring them back.  He may have even been tempted to soften His message somehow, to make it easier to accept.  But He knew He could not.  It would not work, anyway.  If He changed His words in any way, they would no longer be the words of eternal life.  And there would be no reason for people to follow Him.

Following Jesus is often not easy.  But if we want eternal life, we have nowhere else to go.  Let’s hold firm to our faith until the end.  Let’s believe, and know, that Jesus is the Holy One of God.  And let’s listen to, and live by, His words of eternal life.