Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God

 

 Therefore many of His disciples, when they hard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?"  When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you?  What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  But there are some of you who do not believe."  For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.   And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."  From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.  Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?"  But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?"  He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.

 

- John 6:60–71 

 

Yesterday we read that those in the synagogue at Capernaum therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?"  Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.  This is the bread which came down from heaven -- not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead.  He who eats this bread will live forever."  These sayings He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.

 

 Therefore many of His disciples, when they hard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?"  When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you?  What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  But there are some of you who do not believe."  For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.   And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."  From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.   My study Bible comments that the text tells us that even His disciples took Christ's teaching on His Body and Blood as a hard saying, and many walked with Him no more.  It notes that to this day, there are still those who reject Christ's own words concerning the sacramental eating of His Body and drinking of His Blood, and thus do not walk in His teaching.  There is a great difficulty in grasping the depth of this Mystery -- and perhaps even the notion of Mystery itself.  Many attempt either to define its nature rationally or, on the other hand, to explain away Christ's words altogether, and give them only a metaphorical meaning.  But my study Bible comments that either extreme is dubious; to reject this sacramental teaching is to reject the witness of the Scriptures and the unanimous teaching of the Church throughout history.  In the Orthodox churches, Christ's words regarding His Body and Blood have always been accepted as true, as Justin Martyr writes, "that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from Him is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus."  This is a mystical truth; like so much of Scripture itself, it cannot be explained away only as symbolism nor taken in terms of literal earthly understanding.

 

Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?"  But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?"  He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.  Here is Peter's confession of faith in John's Gospel.  There are two important parts to it:  that Jesus has the words of eternal life, and that, as spokesman for all the disciples, Peter says, "Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  My study Bible remarks that Peter's answer prevents the Christian faith from being seen as merely another philosophical system or path of spirituality, as it names Jesus as the one and only Son of the living God.  This excludes compromise with other religious systems; this can only be achieved by divine revelation through faith (1 Corinthians 12:3, Matthew 16:17), not human reason.  

Simon Peter replies to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."   And so it might be with us, who live and believe so many centuries later.  Where else will we go?  Who else has these words of eternal life?  Where else do we hear the word that makes our heart burn as with a flame except in these Gospels, the word of Christ, as His words did to the disciples on the road to Emmaus?   (See Luke 24:32.)   Jesus says, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."  When we step into Scripture, and especially into the words of Christ, we step into a place which the Spirit must help us to understand; and yet, it is the Spirit that gives life, as we say in the Creed ("the Lord, the Holy Spirit, the giver of life").  Even when it is hard to have faith in the face of what we experience in life, even when it is hard to believe given our limited understanding, these words of eternal life grasp us in places we didn't know we had, deep inside our hearts, in our souls.  And the words of St. Peter remain true, there is nothing that equals the power and effect on the heart of what we read in Scripture.   We have repeatedly quoted from St. Augustine's commentary on this chapter, and let us do so again.  He writes that Christ teaches us that even the act of believing is a gift and not a matter of merit.  Earlier in the Gospel, Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God'."  St. Augustine points out that this is more literally read, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me drags him," and this is quite true, to "drag" or pull is the meaning of the word in Greek, a compelling drawing power.  It means to attract, in the sense that a magnet attracts and draws iron alloys to itself.  St. Augustine writes, "This violence happens to the heart, not to the flesh. So why be surprised? Believe, and you come; love, and you are dragged. Do not regard this violence as harsh and irksome; on the contrary, it is sweet and pleasant. It is the very pleasantness of the thing that drags you to it."  And so, the words of life contain Father, Son, and Spirit, and we respond in our heart and soul.  Whether or not we fully understand, there is a part of us that responds with a kind of flame inside of us, and we are taken along on this journey of faith.  It is not Christ who must conform to us, but ultimately we who conform to Christ, we who are conquered by love and the power of love -- and that is really the power in the words of eternal life.  That is why we put our trust in Him, especially when there is nowhere else to place it.  This is Peter's faith, and we may have the grace to find it in us, in the heart that responds to His word.  We should not think we are so different from the disciples nor that we live in such a different time:  there was a dizzying array of belief systems and philosophies in the ancient world into which Christ came.  But there remains only One with the words of eternal life that touch hearts around the world.