The Listening Cynic

You Know the Struggle:

“Who can accept it?”  - John 6:60

Go ahead. Struggle with it. Everyone does. Everyone is.

Jesus’ road is not easy.

The disciples’ road is not easy. We have here a band of brothers, these Twelve. One of them is going to betray Jesus and send a shudder through the entire idea of being his disciple. Another, James, will be dead shortly and two others will be in prison and ready to die. This group of young men will not be long upon the earth. Only John has the chance of dying of old age.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day (John 6:54).

You Know the Insult:

“Does this offend you?” - John 6:61

Jesus is making a claim that goes beyond anything we have heard. He claims that he is going to ascend to heaven. “Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!” - John 6:62.

This entire insult may be summed up in one word: Jesus. He himself is the problem. It’s not our perception of Jesus. It’s not that we are mistaken in our understanding of him. He is making these claims, pure and simple, that go beyond reason.

The world of the First Century was offended. They killed him for blasphemy, for heaven’s sake. They beat him, nailed his body to a wooden cross, and hung him up to die. And they thought they were doing God a favor.

• Some people saw him hanging on that cross and said, “Good riddance. What a nuisance!”

• Some saw him hanging on that cross and through their tears mumbled, “Surely this man was the Son of God.”

You cannot eliminate the insult to humanity that Jesus himself constitutes in both his person and his work.

• God gave up on all of us the day Jesus died. God declared through the crucifixion of Jesus that not a single man or woman who ever lived or ever would live was worthy of his presence and worthy of eternal life. God declared at Calvary that every human being ever born into this world was under his wrath, under his judgment, and condemned to die.

• God gave up on you the day Jesus died. He knew about you, even back then. He knew your name. He knew you would come screaming into this world. He knew how high your hopes would be. He knew how far you would fall. He knew it all. And he gave up on you, too. Even though he loved you, he knew you could not do it. You would not keep his law. You would not obey the commands. You would not respect him and treat him as holy in all your ways.

God is saying something about all of us through Jesus that we do not want to hear—“You don’t measure up. You can’t measure up. You are hopelessly sinful. You fall back every time. This is you—essentially you.” 

You Know the Cost:

“The flesh counts for nothing” - John 6:63

All of our goods, education, credentials, are useless here.

Our “specialness” is fading. We have been told by our parents from the very beginning how special we are. We have felt special—so beautiful and smart and talented and good. Now we must endure the insult and affront that Jesus is. We cannot go to heaven, we cannot know the Father, we cannot be saved, unless and until we throw ourselves upon his mercy. We are utterly lost without him. It’s outrageous.

No longer followed (Later to betray). So we have this whole group of people who just get up and leave. Have they heard his amazing teaching? Yes. Have they seen the miraculous signs? Yes. Will they stay? No. It’s just too hard.

• “Narrow is the gate that leads to life, and few there be who find it,” Jesus said. You stand in front of this gate that is Jesus himself. You’ve got our backpacks on your shoulders. You have your good deeds all packed in the luggage. You are an amazing person ready to make this exhilarating journey. 

• And Jesus says, “You can’t bring your luggage. No bags. You can’t bring your backpack.” And for the first time you notice by the gate that the mountain you thought was rock and dirt on either side of the gate is luggage of every color and kind—a mountain of baggage. Every single person who entered that that gate had to leave it all behind. 

• Now you understand all those pilgrims you have passed on your journey, going the opposite direction, shaking their heads. You thought they had missed the gate. No, they found the gate, but they decided not to go through, not to go on. They turned away. They left. They kept their good deeds, their smarts, their pride in themselves. The cost was too high. Hanging naked on a cross was just too much. They turned away and followed Jesus no longer.

You Know the Way:

Peter said, “You have the words” 

• Jesus knew they were all thinking about it. He could hear their thoughts, shouting at him. “Will you also go away?” he asked them, anxiously, sadly. Jesus has already made the decision. He is going to stay the course. He called these men around them so that they could be with him on this journey. He so wants them to stay. But he knows in the end he will die alone on Golgatha, “the place of a skull.” They are all going to flee as he dies. 

• Peter clarifies the moment: “To whom shall we go?” 

Judas is struggling. He feels the offense, the insult, of Jesus’ words. He joined the group believing that Jesus could make a real difference in his world. And now it is devolving to this—this absurdity that Jesus is not the freedom fighter of Israel but “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Judas listened and watched as Jesus veered off the expected course of national liberation into the lunacy of being a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

And he just couldn’t go there. That’s what broke him. That’s why he left, why he betrayed Jesus in the end. He couldn’t get past the offense, the insult of human degradation and the ridiculous notion that Jesus of Nazareth was God himself come to earth to save us.

And so it has been through the generations. People have hard the claims of Jesus. Some, like Peter, have believed knowing there was no other way to eternal life. Others, like Judas, have turned away and fallen into despair. 

Where else do you find this path, this way?