Stay With Him in the Mystery
Aug 29 2023 - Amy Raby
In John 6, the teachings of Jesus are nothing short of a conundrum. The Bible is full of these weird miraculous events and teachings…the virgin birth, the triune God, the resurrection of Jesus, the bread and wine. Things we believe in faith. Things we can talk about and attempt to explain in a sense, but if we’re really honest, things like these are surrounded with a great cloud of mystery. I don’t understand the intricacies of how the Holy Spirit got Mary pregnant or how we eat Jesus’s flesh when we partake in the sacrament of communion. I know they are matters of the Spirit, as Jesus explains in John 6:63. Even though I can’t wrap my mind completely around them, I trust the Spirit to reveal and teach as He sees fit. Nonetheless, I more often than not find myself confuzzled when it comes to certain verses in the Bible.
John 6 is full of these mysterious teachings:
V54- The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…
V55- because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
V56- The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
V57- …the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
If those verses sound odd to you, you’re in good company. The followers of Jesus were extremely confused by these teachings. Some of them just straight up said, “This teaching is hard…” (6:60). I don’t know about you, but the more I learn about Jesus, the more mysterious He becomes. Some disciples found these mysteries to affirm the deity and holiness of Christ—Peter responded with, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God'' (6:69). Others found them totally off-putting, like a repellent. “From that moment many of his disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him” (6:66).
Perhaps the ones who turned away, who “no longer accompanied him”, had perceived Jesus as an accompaniment to their lives instead of the other way around. Jesus points it out earlier in the chapter when He says, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled” (6:26). These disciples who couldn’t handle the mystery of Christ’s flesh giving them eternal life weren’t looking for a Messiah to love, but rather someone who could satisfy their immediate needs.
I don’t want to be found trying to bring Jesus along for what He can do for me, like an accessory add-on to my life. I don’t want to be the lead and Him second chair. I don’t want to invite Him to my table, but rather sit among the tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners at His.
I want to be like Peter who remembered what He knew of Jesus when he was faced with things He couldn’t understand about Jesus. Peter, who came back to Jesus after being sifted by Satan (Luke 22:31-32). Peter, who proclaimed His love for Jesus after being overtaken by fear and denying the very One he loved (John 18:27; 21:17). Peter didn’t understand all the mysteries accompanying a life of following Jesus, but he chose to accompany Him nonetheless.
“When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
This idea of accompanying Jesus is simply the Spirit-filled life. The Spirit is meant to magnify Jesus in our hearts and minds. To remind us every single day that Jesus is at the center, not us. That Jesus is the host at the dinner party, not us. That Jesus is the one we look to, not to ourselves. When we come across a teaching we don’t understand, a path He has laid that we don’t want to walk down, or when things simply don’t seem to make sense, we don’t bail. This is the perfect invitation to trust Him all the more as we press into the mystery and stay with Him.