According to John, immediately following Jesus’s discourse on the bread of life, many disciples walked away. “This is an hard saying,” they said to each other. When Jesus discerned that these disciples murmured at his teachings, he asked why this offended them. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe [pisteuousin = trust, fely, fidelity] not.” From that time, many of his disciples “went back, and walked no more with him.”
Then Jesus turned to the twelve disciples and asked a heartbreaking question: “Will ye also go away?” Let’s pause for a second and consider the scene. Jesus had just laid out a very simply and wonderful truth: God in heaven had sent Jesus to speak of God and reveal God to the world; and just by hearing those words and learning from them, the effect would mean everlasting life. What more could anyone want? And how freely given was that message? Could anything less threatening be offered? And yet it was a “hard saying.” It wasn’t what people wanted to hear, and they rejected it.
What was so off-putting about that message? Jesus had already identified the disconnection. These disciples had sought him out for free food. “Ye seek me,” he had told them, “not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.” They had gotten a glimmer of luxury the day before, a feast freely given, something none of these Galilean peasants had ever known. They might have thought of Jesus as a heaven-sent disruptor of the economic status quo, someone who through his miraculous power could provide manna forever and make them never again have to plow a field or bake bread. The good life. And when Jesus replied about something deeper, a more abiding sustenance arising from a relationship with the One True God and not some misunderstood fantasy version of God, this sounded esoteric. How were they supposed to eat that kind of bread? How does one eat words? Apparently Jesus didn’t follow that particular agenda, and so they went back to their fields and to their work.
So, those twelve remaining disciples, were they like that, mainly interested in the material blessings of Jesus’s ministry? Would they also head back to their nets and their fields and leave Jesus alone? Ominously, we know that they would eventually depart from him, too. When authorities would come to arrest Jesus in the not-to-distant future, those twelve disciples would flee in all directions. One of them would orchestrate the arrest, another would vehemently deny having anything to do with Jesus.
But for the moment, Simon voiced a faithful sentiment. “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”
Indeed. To whom shall we go? Jesus has the words of eternal life. Simon understood the words gave greater sustenance than the bread. In our own spiritual conflicts, whatever they may be, we can affirm Simon’s sentiment. Jesus has the words of eternal life. We may turn to others for philosophy, or support, or encouragement, or community, but only one ever brought the words of eternal life to the world. Only one is the living bread and the living waters who can fill our hunger and quench our thirst.
Rejection comes to Jesus and rejection comes to Jesus’s true disciples. Again, Jesus modeled for us what to do with rejection: hold fast to our relationship with him as he holds fast to his relationship with God. Rejection and invalidation aren’t good reasons for abandoning that relationship. Jesus never let the worst rejection dissuade him. He remained resolute with God and with himself all the same. He remained anchored to God’s will for him. We can anchor ourselves on Jesus’s words and visit our relationship with him with the expectation that we aren’t absolutely alone.