Living in the Tension (John 6:60-71)
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jeremy_2_06-20-2025_140025: [00:00:00] Last week, we saw Jesus tell his followers that they needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood,
and that got a very bizarre reaction, and it was not received well. And today we're going to see what happened as a result, the fallout. Of Jesus's teaching and how this is just too much for many of the people who had been following him since he had fed them.
So we're gonna pick up the story in John chapter six, verse 60. Many of his disciples said, this is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it? Have you ever felt that about Jesus' teachings? Now, Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining. So we said to them, does this offend you? Then what will you think if you see the son of Man ascend to heaven again?
The spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken [00:01:00] to you are spirit and life, but some of you do not believe me. For Jesus knew from the beginning which ones didn't believe, and he knew who would betray him. Then he said, that is why I said that people can't come to me unless the father gives them to me.
Now, at this point, many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. many of us don't picture Jesus this way. Imagine you're standing and you're watching Jesus say all of this. John doesn't say that the crowd. Turned away. Notice the word that he says that some of the disciples turned away.
Like we don't imagine being in that scene, watching disciples of Jesus hear something that he said and just go, Nope, not for me. This is too much. This is where I'm out. And they begin walking away. Now, rather than shying away from that, rather than going, oh, hold on guys. Wait, wait, come back. There's [00:02:00] more.
No, he just intensifies what he's saying. He intensifies the point he's trying to make. Verse 62 that we just read. He says, then what will you think if you see the son of man ascend to heaven again? Now this has a little bit of a double meaning here. What will you think if you see Jesus ascend as God?
That would've been a lot. For them to process like, well, are we assuming Jesus is fully God? Because again, that's the point he's making. But then the other one is, what will you think when you see him ascend to the cross where his flesh and his blood are literally going to be poured out.
Where this metaphor isn't gonna be as metaphorical when you realize Jesus is giving his physical body. For everyone to have life, and all of a sudden we can see where this is all going. They still would've been a little confused, but we can begin to go, oh, that's why he's saying it the way he's [00:03:00] saying it.
Verse 67. Then Jesus turned to the 12. This is his closest 12 disciples. Are you also going to leave? He says, and Simon Peter replied, Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the holy one of God. And then Jesus said, I chose the 12 of you.
But one of you is a devil. He was speaking of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, one of the 12 who would later betray him. Now in this exchange, Peter gives an interesting response. Notice he doesn't say, Jesus, we would never leave you. I don't know how you could even ask us that. I mean, we we're, you know, we're your ride or dies, like, we're always gonna be here.
He doesn't say that. He is like, what else would we do? Where else would we go? What else is there compared [00:04:00] with you? Peter has weighed his options and he knows he chooses Jesus as the best option, and if I'm honest with you, this is a huge reason why I follow Jesus today. It is not because I've never doubted.
It's not because I've never had moments of thinking this doesn't make sense, or this is too hard, or this is bizarre. It's because I've never found anything else, even remotely close to what I find in Jesus. And so I've looked around, I've weighed the options, and I go, none of that even comes near what I have found in the person of Jesus.
So I really resonate with the way that Peter answers this question. And as we reflect on what we've been looking at these last few weeks of this really hard teaching from Jesus that causes disciples to walk away from him, [00:05:00] we should be able to draw some conclusions. Or one of 'em, I think, is that Christians should be the best equipped to deal with hard times because we've already committed to following the guy with a difficult message.
The guy that teaches things that other people go, that's, that's too much, and we go. Alright, I'll wrestle with that. And it doesn't mean it's gonna be easy, but we should be equipped to deal with hard times. Now, this passage in particular holds sentimental value to me because the last time I preached this passage, I was a lead pastor.
In fact, it was the last text I ever preached on as a lead pastor in the midst of the turmoil of what was going on in 2020. And I preached this passion I talked about there are hard things happening right now in our world, and yet we are the ones who stick around with Jesus. We're the ones people go, I'm out.
I'm [00:06:00] walking away. That we go, Hey, where else would we go? We choose you and so we should be the ones able to navigate this. And yet the reaction I got when I preached it was, Hey, we don't want all this tension. Just preach Jesus. Which I hope you realize is rather ironic in a passage where people walked away from Jesus, and yet this was the last message I gave.
Now if we go back to the basics of what is the church, what do we find in the scriptures, there has always been tension. This idea of just preach Jesus and avoid anything controversial or anything tense. Has never been true. In fact, look at the book of Acts, the beginnings of the church in chapter five.
You have people dying in church in chapters eight and 12. You have persecution in chapter 15. You have racial and ethnic tensions. In chapter 15. You have divisions among the disciples in chapter 19. You have [00:07:00] riots. I mean, this is all in the early church. we find all of this. So we must learn how to follow Jesus in the tension, not with some belief that we can avoid it by just preaching Jesus.
So there's this idea that, hey, if we could just preach Jesus, we'd all get along. We could pretend like these problems aren't real, and maybe that would be the way they'd feel. They'd feel like they weren't real anymore. But I want you to remember that even Jesus's disciples. Wrestled with what it meant to follow Jesus, and many of them chose to walk away.
Many of them said, this is too much, and yet there's something for you and I to learn in the midst of a story like this. Perhaps it would be better for us rather than trying to just preach Jesus in a vacuum to say, Hey, we can address the tensions around us because we are the ones [00:08:00] who follow. Jesus. I wanna close with something.
The author Donald Miller wrote about his own journey coming to experience Jesus. He said, if we were not experiencing some sort of conflict in our lives, our hearts would've no response to conflict in books or film. I. The idea of conflict of having tension, suspense, or an enemy would make no sense to us, but these things do make sense.
We understand these elements because we experience them. And then he says, as much as I did not want to admit it, Christian spirituality explained why. We are the ones who have weighed the options, who have wrestled with the hard teachings and have still said, we choose to follow Jesus. Where else would we go?
And because of that, we are uniquely equipped to meet the tension head on. To deal with what is going on [00:09:00] around us, to bring hope and purpose to a world that desperately needs it. Not because we're gonna bury our heads in the sands, but because we follow Jesus. I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
