We heard this morning what has to be one of the saddest moments in Jesus’ life. Did you hear it? Listen to it again: “After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, do you also wish to go away.”
It is so sad. Many of those who followed him: His friends, those he healed, those he fed, those who benefited greatly from his ministry, they abandon him, leave him, reject him. Jesus even asks his closest friends, those 12 who literally lived with him, if they will stay with him.
Rejection by those closest to you is a painful, hurtful experience for anyone. How many of us know that experience; to have a spouse reject you in divorce or neglect, to have a parent reject you as a child, as a parent to be rejected by your child, to be rejected by those you considered friends, to be fired from a job in which you felt invested.
It is a terrible experience.
Jesus knows abandonment and rejection. It seems amazing that God knows rejection but he does. The one who loved others deeply, who was pouring out his life for the hurting and needy and down-trodden, is rejected by those who had most benefited from his ministry.
And why? Because he said something they didn’t like or understand. Remember this is in the context of Jesus’ teaching about himself being the bread of life; the source of life itself, of his claims to intimate knowledge of God the father and his purpose and will for people, and his call to people to believe in him, his call for people to put their absolute trust in him, to put Jesus ahead of everything in life, make him the center of one’s life.
And we see a goodly number of those who have benefited from his teaching and care, draw back. Can’t go there Jesus, you are asking too much of me.
How can they not trust him knowing what he has done, seeing proof of who he is? Yet our desire to keep control of our lives, to keep ourselves at the center of life, is very powerful.
I know people who have been prayed for and miraculously healed by the Lord, and they later deny it. They said it was a coincidence, or attribute it to medical procedures, or a miss diagnosis. They reject Jesus because they don’t want to believe in a God that powerful because it can change their lives. And that is scary.
I know people who have been miraculously healed by Jesus, and have acknowledged that he healed them,
and then later they walk away from the Lord, from the Church. It can be ay a moral issue, or they just didn’t get their way; they chose to live as their own Lord to their own ends, rejecting obedience to Jesus.
I had a close friend who was a part of a ministry we were involved with. He loved the Lord, he ministered in his name, but when he moved to a new place, he renounced his belief in Jesus and plunged into a life of drugs and sex. He had walked with Jesus, and at a point, he drew back: I can go no more, I want what I want. It is sad; heartbreaking.
It is part of our human nature that we really struggle with keeping self first, looking out for number one. We have a hard time in recognizing a greater authority in our lives and want to reject or rebel against it.
If we must have a God to be over us, we want one who will meet our needs and desires, a God who will do nothing to offend our sensibilities or upset our way of thinking or make us uncomfortable in any way; a God that puts me first.
And the devil is there looking for opportunities to capitalize on that disposition, looking for ways to cause us to stumble and equivocate, to draw back from Jesus.
Have there been times when you’ve gone through a difficult point in life, a crisis of one sort or another where you were tempted to draw back, to fend off God’s call on us?
Have you ever heard the devil say to you: Go ahead, do it, you need it, you deserve it; take those drugs, steal that money, watch that movie, say yes to that seducer or seductress, say that little white lie?
You won’t get caught. God will forgive you, he knows Christians aren’t perfect. Besides, it will solve your problem. You are only human.
Or maybe you hear: God has really left you out here, hasn’t he? You lost that job, you have to move, you lost your home, you are going through this sickness – he didn’t take care of you, and you really don’t have the power to get through this.
I think we all know this kind of struggle at times in our lives.
And sometimes we fall. We trust ourselves and withdraw from Jesus. We sin. But then do we acknowledge our weakness, our error in judgment, our willful violation, and ask God for forgiveness, ask him to help us not to continue doing whatever it is? Pray for his power to get us through? Do we seek restoration? Do we turn back to Jesus for forgiveness and help?
Because if we choose to just write it off, justify our actions, believe that God doesn’t care how we live our lives that he just make exceptions for our desires, it’s then we are in real danger of rejecting Jesus, of walking away from him, of wanting ourselves more than we want him.
After Jesus asked the question to the 12, it was Simon Peter who answered: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and come to know that you are the holy one of God.”
I don’t think that Peter was smarter or wiser than those who rejected Jesus. i don’t think he had greater insight or wisdom than any of the others. What he did was to make a willful, conscious decision to trust completely in Jesus.
He might not have completely understood his situation. He might not have completely grasped all the implications of Jesus’ teaching, maybe he didn’t even want to be in this particular situation. But he knew Jesus, and he trusted that Jesus would somehow make it clear, or work it out. He trusted Jesus – who he is and what he said – more than he trusted his own knowledge or intuition. He was betting his life on Jesus.
It comes down to that; trusting Jesus, knowing Jesus, knowing his words, his presence, trusting him more than ourselves. Standing on his words, his promises, knowing that in every difficult situation, every tragedy, every life situation he is there standing with you; sometimes, holding you up.
It’s knowing that even when we fall, even when we fail miserably to live up to his standards, we can always turn back to him and he will receive us gladly and lovingly.
When we truly trust, truly believe, when we put our lives literally into his hands, when we can say truly: Jesus my life is yours to do with as you will, then in every life situation, no matter how confusing or how painful, we can say, I don’t understand this Lord, it feels like you are not in this, I don’t want to be here Lord but where else can I go? Jesus, you are my life, you are my Lord, my God.
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and come to know that you are the holy one of God.” Reflect on these words today. Let them sift through your mind and soul and heart today. May they motivate us to grow in our knowledge and faith in Jesus so when we face the challenges of this life, we might not withdraw from Jesus, reject Jesus, but would find these words slip through our lips, confessing we do trust Jesus as our first, last and only recourse in every situation – we trust him with our lives.