"You Have the Words of Eternal Life ", September 1, 2024 — Santa Teresa Hills Presbyterian Church

“You Have The Words of Eternal Life”

John 6: 56-69

Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, September 1, 2024

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” With these poetic phrases, John begins his gospel. He is speaking about Jesus Christ, the One who has existed from eternity and who became a human being to show us the fullness of God’s love. But why does John refer to Jesus as the word? What is a word? It is a spoken or written expression of an idea or concept. The idea can exist in one’s mind, but unless it is expressed, it cannot be shared. If God only exists outside of our reality or understanding, there is very little we can know about the divine. Jesus Christ is called the word because he is God in human form – God expressing Godself in a way we mortals can begin to understand.

Although English translations use the term “word,” in the original, John uses the Greek logos, a term from Greek philosophy, meaning “principle of order and knowledge.” The Stoics of John’s day used logos to refer to the generative principle of the Universe. Christians came to understand that as the Logos, Jesus Christ is God in self-revelation. Jesus, the Logos, is God to the extent that God can be present to humanity and knowable to us, at least in this life. Jesus is the incarnation of God, Emmanuel, God with us. We did not truly know what God was like until God’s Word, that is Jesus Christ, came into the world to manifest who God is.

The theme of the logos or divine word is woven throughout John’s gospel, starting here in Chapter One. We see it again in John 6, when Peter says to Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life.” It is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the words of Jesus from the person himself, for one of the main things Jesus came to do was to teach us. The word “teach” or “teacher” is used over 100 times in the Gospels, nearly always to refer to Jesus, for example, “All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them,” “He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue,” “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.” So, if people know that Jesus is, at the very least, a teacher sent by God, why do they desert him? Why, as John wrote, did “his own people…not accept him”?

Only Peter and the disciples got it right, when Jesus asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter understands and confesses what John hopes all of his readers understand and confess, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” After all, that is why John wrote his gospel. As he says near the end of his book: “But these [things] are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

It seems so simple, looking back on it – believe, like the first disciples, and follow Jesus and his teachings. That is the way to know God. We think that if we had been there, could actually have seen, heard, and touched Jesus, could have witnessed the miracles he did, that we, too, would have believed. Yet, after watching one of Jesus’ greatest miracles, the feeding of the 5000 with only five loaves and two fish, there were people who turned their backs on him and walked away. The excuse they give is that Jesus’ teachings are too difficult.

What are the excuses we give for turning away from Jesus? For not listening to his words? Are we any different from those ancient people?

Sometimes we are like those in the crowd of whom Jesus said: “you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” Some people follow Jesus as long as God gives them what they want. The people were hungry and Jesus gave them bread and fish. This is not unlike those who believe in the prosperity gospel, which teaches that if you have enough faith, God will make you rich and keep you healthy. That is not what the Bible teaches. Remember the Apostle Paul, who prayed three times to be healed, and God answered, “My grace is sufficient for you”? God is not a cosmic Santa Claus who gives us everything we want as long as we stay off the “naughty list.” Yes, God supplies our needs, but not always in the way we want or at the time we want. Some people only believe in God as long as things are going well, but they desert Him when things go badly. The people who were following Jesus because he had given them bread and fish to eat were like that.

They abandoned Jesus when they saw that they were not always going to get something from him, that following him might actually demand something of them.

Then there were the people who complained, despite having just seen a miracle, that Jesus was only an ordinary human being. They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” These are the hard-headed realists, the ones who refuse to believe unless it can be proven on their terms. We, too, in the 21st century usually want things to be supported by facts and figures. Yet, we sometimes have to admit that we don’t know everything. These critics did not know about Jesus’ miraculous birth, or that John the Baptist had seen the Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove when he was baptized. Or maybe they knew all that, but just didn’t want to believe anything that contradicted their worldview. There will always be those who refuse to believe anything that cannot be rationally explained.

Yet sometimes we must admit, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet said to his friend, “There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Even though we can explain the existence of the universe, our planet, and all life upon it through scientific means, it doesn’t exclude the hand of the divine behind it. I can accept the theory of evolution, and yet believe that God is guiding the process. It is not an either/or choice – science or religion. It is both/and. Yes, Jesus was born as a human baby, yet Jesus was God. Yes, Jesus became a man, yet he was the bread that came down from heaven. God has given us the wonderful ability to think and to reason rationally, yet some things are still beyond our understanding. That is where faith comes in. We Presbyterians like the phrase “faith seeking understanding,” and we should always strive to understand, but there is still that leap of faith, when we acknowledge that we don’t know everything, but we trust God anyway. We are like passengers on a plane who trust the pilot and the engineers who designed the plane.

We may have an idea of how it flies, but we don’t know all the details. Yet we still get on the plane. If those people closest to Jesus, Peter and the disciples can say, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God,” perhaps we can, too.

Finally there are those who simply give up and say, “This teaching is difficult. Who can accept it?” G. K. Chesterton said, “The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” It’s not that we don’t believe in Jesus’ teachings; it’s that we find them too difficult to follow. We read of a rich young ruler who wanted to follow Jesus, but when Jesus told him to give all he had to the poor, he turned away sadly, “for he had many possessions.” In what ways do we reject Jesus, or refuse to follow him because it seems too difficult?

There may be other reasons for turning away from Christ that are not mentioned in this passage from John 6. Some people, overcome by shame and guilt, hide from God, thinking they can never be forgiven for what they have done, or that they are somehow unworthy of God’s love.

They are like Adam and Eve in the garden, who hid from God out of shame. But God came looking for them – not to punish them, but to re-establish their broken relationship with him. Yes, they had sinned, and had to pay the consequences, but God showed them his love and care by clothing them with animal skins to cover their nakedness – the first sacrifice of an animal in the Bible, and a foreshadowing of Christ’s sacrifice to come. When we have sinned, we don’t need to hide from God. As the father welcomed the Prodigal Son in Jesus’ parable, God is always waiting to welcome us back home. It doesn’t matter what we have done or failed to do – God’s love and mercy are always there. Besides, who else can we turn to? As Peter said, “Lord, to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

What is it that causes you to turn away from Jesus? Hear the good news: If we have strayed, Jesus welcomes us back with open arms. Jesus has the words of eternal life. Let’s follow him. He is always glad of our company. Amen.