“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search it out.
Proverbs 25:2
Lord, I ask You for a blessing in these words. In your Sons holy Name, we seek You.
Welcome back to the table, friends and family!
Come on; let’s eat! We’re in John 6 this time.
All of us have, pretty much, heard of the accounts in the Bible where Jesus feeds a whole ton of people with very little, actual food; or where He walked on water in the midst of a scary, raging storm; and where they all teleported across the sea, with Jesus, in a boat.
Wait, I’m sorry; what?
Yep, it’s in verse 21 but, I’m going to leave the teleportation study for you later — on your own time. There’s way too much smoke that comes with a topic that’s that controversial. I do not want to be a part of anything like that, yet, but go ahead and read it. It’ll get you thinking.
And; ‘yet’ is the proper adverb and spirit I’m attempting to embody as the days go on, because I do hope to be strong enough to address these touchy topics in the future; the subjects that’ll end up getting me rejected or hurt; or even worse; silenced.
We all tend to get real resistant to a new guy peddling some really, wild concepts; we just don’t trust a new face, or new concepts, but as a new guy Himself, there’s not much in life that Jesus didn’t deal with, on His own journey. He came with a new Way. An idea that would wreck the plans and power of the people in that day. Lots of people didn’t like it, because it came with ideas and words that sounded contrary to truth — at first — and are extremely, off-putting.
Extremely.
But Jesus didn’t stop when most of His listeners walked away because He said something they couldn’t understand. He once told everyone that they should “eat His flesh.” He just kept saying it, really nailing down the difficult teaching. In fact, He doubled and tripled down — a few times over — and in verse 55 He states;
“For My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink.”
He must have meant it; somehow.
This is what I’m currently dealing with as I go about my days worshipping God and loving to the best of my hampered, ability. No one really trusts me.
It’s understandable — really, in all ways — as an ex-drunk and passionately-converted, middle-aged bearded-man. But it’s never easy to choke down a more humble reputation or position. Especially one you are forced into accepting because of your own previous interactions with others.
I wonder how Paul felt about all of this.
Back in John 6, in verse 5, Jesus starts His lesson with a question to Phillip — one of His twelve, committed, disciples — that He knows doesn’t have an answer. He starts talking about bread;
John 6:5 –
“Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”
The word is explicit about Jesus already knowing where He was taking this; He’s going to perform a miracle and give people a sign.
Then; He basically turns a measly little amount of food, into way more than enough. Twelve baskets-full actually; after even, the disciples ate their fill.
And it kinda, freaked them out, Mark 6:52 clarifies, in its account of the moment;
“…they still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in.”
Like, when Mary — the mother of Jesus — “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart,” in Luke 2, she did take the Bread in. These devout observers of Jesus’ new way saw these things happen and somehow, they knew there was something to them that was more than what meets the eye. It seemed pretty impossible, though, as to what the meaning of these events appeared to be highlighting.
The spontaneous and wildly, unexplainable miracles got to them, and eventually, after some more lessons from the Word — Himself — they were able to look more closely, and understand them. And with more insight, they took all this information in to chew on. These people watched Jesus perform signs and wonders all over the known world. In simple terms;
It didn’t get past them. They saw the glitch in the matrix and started peering in, in a more intentional way. They started digesting it.
The issue does, really, come down to trust. Others’ trust is hard to come by, but it’s out of our sphere of responsibility, as far as the Bible is concerned so, just keep going. People will get uneasy and justify doing bad things — that they believe are the right things — in order to stop your path.
I have been a writer for pretty much my entire sober life — before and after the battle with booze — and there are probably hundreds of my writings, strewn across the world-wide-web. Most of them have some pretty big flaws in either the writing, or the attitude behind it but, string them all together and you’ll see one common thread; Jesus was in all of it.
Now, I don’t suggest you go search for traces of my digital footprint — I have said some pretty mean things in the past.
But one particular post — that I remember causing a small explosion in my family life — was a time when my dad had gotten really upset about me using the f-word and the name of God, in the same sentence. In fact, that was just, sort of the topic of the post; trying to correlate my way out of hating the world, but getting hit, over and over again; by mean people who are ‘better Christians’ than me.
Honestly, I was definitely trying to stir the pot, back then — with the words in that post — but you surely must, also, understand this; I wasn’t only typing cuss words in an angry post– I was also typing the name of God, in an angry post. Which is probably the exact reason I have made it, even, this far.
Some words are scary to us. The concept of “make-believing” our way into faith — the last post spoke about (🔊57: Make believe friends are better than fear and hellfire.) — seems hard. I think a lot of us get scared with the word ‘pretend,’ because we attribute ‘fake’ with the exact same meaning between the two; but they are very different.
Here’s an example;
Let’s say you and the boss were supposed to show up for a weekend shift. Your job — for your shift — is to start the coffee, set up the labs and do the prep for the project that the boss-lady will do when she arrives.
In this instance, let’s imagine that the boss doesn’t show up — and in your head — you decide to ‘pretend’ that she would eventually show up anyway, at some point, so you continue to act as if the original plans didn’t change.
Here, you are both acting and pretending, but none of what you are doing is fake. In fact, it’s probably the best thing for you to do at the moment.
Jesus wasn’t talking about cannibalism. As I studied this story in the gospels — this week — it became so vividly plain to me, the reason for all the ‘Bread-of-life, eat-me’ talk.
The enemy doesn’t want you to attain access to the power of your inheritance; which is the Word of God leading to eternal life. The thing is though; our strongest, most powerful weapon is right at our fingertips; and satan knows it.
We just have to get it in us.
Food is consumed by eating — and digesting — in the belly.
Spiritual life is attained by reading — and digesting — in the mind.
A lot of this stuff takes so much time and attention that; if I were to explain all of what I’ve studied and learned through the many experiences and time with God and other people — that you haven’t lived through as me — it would take forty years!
Sometimes you just have to keep listening. Often, too, we must not be afraid to encroach the boundaries of others’ arbitrary rules in order to search out the truths of God. They’ll “strain a gnat, but swallow a camel.” That’s in the Bible too.
I want to motivate you to start turning some stones in your life. Start doing things a little differently or, in a weird way; get people looking at you. Find God.
If you can’t see Him the way others are looking, then look differently.
The townspeople in this chapter, weren’t willing to keep listening. They were comfortable, and at their first interaction, He seemed like a crazy man, so most of them walked away empty handed. They missed the point.
But Peter stayed.
Andrew stayed.
All of the committed disciples stayed with Jesus.
Most others hated Him for what He said. They misunderstood His message.
“The Spirit alone gives eternal life,” John 6:63 says; “Human effort accomplishes nothing,” Jesus continues.
“And the very words I have spoken to you” He says; “are spirit and life.”
Are you staying?
I’m literally not Jesus;
I’m trying to be.
Have a good week, listeners.
Thanks for the support.
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