This Is a Hard Saying
February 19, 2023
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
John 6:60-71
60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
This morning is our last sermon in the gospel of John until after Easter. During the season of Lent, which begins next Wednesday, we’ll be preaching through the Old Testament wisdom book of Ecclesiastes. I encourage you to make time to listen to the book or to read through it beforehand. It might take you a half hour, but that one thing, done by all of us, will greatly enhance our ability to enjoy and learn from the book.
This morning’s sermon on John will be short. In the last twenty minutes of the service, we’re doing something we’ve never done before; we’re talking about the church plant and how you can help financially. If that seems weird to you and out of place, please know a few things. First, it’s weird to me. In nine years, we’ve never done this, and so it won’t become a regular part of our church. But planting a church is an unusual but wonderful event. So we want it to have space. And many of you have been asking for months about how you can help, so today’s the day we’ll share that.
But first let me do my best to preach this passage in twenty minutes. Let’s pray again as we begin. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
As I hear this passage read, I picture one of those classic locker room scenes in some great sport movie, perhaps like Hoosiers or Remember the Titans. You might have your own favorites. And they always have that scene. There’s a change of coaches or the administration. Then the team has some early success. But then they hit adversity. The coach asks more from the players. And at some point, he’ll say, “If you don’t want to play, you can leave. There’s the door.”
In our passage, it’s a crowd, not a team. It’s Jesus, not a coach. But it did seem like the crowd loved their new Jesus. He healed their sick. They ate his food and even followed him across the Sea of Galilee to hear him speak more. Now, they’re not so sure.
What happened? Noah preached a huge passage last week, so let me go back by way of a reminder. Statements at the end of the passage troubled this crowd of disciples. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” Jesus said in v. 51. “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
This is strange, right? They think so. Look at how they respond in v. 52. “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’” How will Jesus respond to their response? Maybe he’ll clarify in a way that is less offensive to them. Maybe he’ll walk back his words. Maybe he won’t.
53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”
Jesus goes on a few more lines. Notice the last line in Noah’s passage: “Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum” (v. 59). Perhaps that last line stands out more to me than to you. His words are troubling enough, even offensive. Then consider he’s a guest preacher. I sometimes coordinate guest preachers here at our church, and I sometimes end up as a guest preacher at other churches. In fact, on one Sunday in May a friend at West Shore E-Free invited me to preach there. Last time I was in West Shore, I got lost. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen again. I really like our brothers and sisters over there. Anyway, I’m aware of how awkward this sermon (maybe more of a Sunday School discussion) must have been for almost everyone.
Jesus, however, is often full of hard sayings, so many that there’s a whole book called The Hard Sayings of Jesus written by a faithful and gifted scholar. We often say we want to hear from him, and I do, but we should also acknowledge that he is not a comfortable guest preacher (cf. Luke 4 and Rev. 2–3).
There are two different kinds of hard sayings, though. There are sayings of Jesus that are hard to understand and hard sayings that feel offensive because of how they cut against our pride and insult our autonomy. “Eat my flesh and drink my blood” might be both hard to understand and offensive.
What does it even mean? When you look at this statement in context, Jesus is using eating and drinking language as a provocative metaphor for saving faith. He’s saying that people must come to him so desperately and hungrily and thirstily and that we must find our soul satisfaction so much in him, that it is like we feed on him and drink of him for our very life.
This is not the only place he speaks of saving, genuine faith in provocative language. Take for example our beloved Matthew 11 when Jesus tells all who are weary and heavy ladened to come to him. “Take my yoke upon you,” he says. That doesn’t feel as provocative to us, but it did to the original, agrarian audience. Jesus is saying that having true faith in him is like being yoked to him. To be yoked is the language used of strapping one ox to another as they work a field. Hence a provocative metaphor for saving faith. Thus, this hard saying about eating his flesh and drinking his blood caused them to grumble because, even after it’s understood, it insults their autonomy. Jesus is saying true life isn’t found anywhere except through him.
What hard saying of Jesus causes you to grumble? What statements cause you to be offended, even scandalized, by Jesus? Maybe it’s this one here. Or maybe it’s the sexual ethics of Jesus that feel to you so, shall we say, outdated. Or maybe it’s the connection you perceive between Jesus and politics, meaning either Jesus and his church feel too political or that he and they are not political enough. Or maybe you grumble because the followers of Jesus who seem too hypocritical. I got a text just this week from a friend who lives a few hours from here, and he can’t imagine how Jesus can be real when his followers are so bad. Maybe Jesus’s radical demand about his ownership of your life makes you grumble. Maybe your biggest challenge is what we might call a tragic providence, some loss or trial or some unmet deep desire. Each of these—and all of these and others—might cause us to take offense at Jesus.
How will we respond? As things typically go, last week’s passage leads to this week’s passage, which is a passage all about response. How do people respond? We read first of the crowd of disciples, then Jesus, and then Peter. Let’s talk about each briefly.
How does the crowd respond?
Sometimes when people do something wild and provocative on social media, you’ll see someone share a GIF of someone eating popcorn, and they’ll comment something like, “I’m just here to see what happens.” I’d like to have had a bag of popcorn and watched this guest preacher and this crowd.
They don’t like what he has to say, and they leave. I’ll read v. 60 again and then skip down to v. 66. “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” Jesus says more. Then we read, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.”
That phrasing in v. 66 is so interesting. They were his disciples who were not his disciples. By definition, a disciple is someone who walks in the way of another. Here we read again, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” Some of us know outside pressure to turn back from Jesus, whether from family, school, friends, work. Others feel pressure from within themselves to turn back.
In your thinking about Christianity and the church, you must have a category for disciples who are not disciples. The Bible does. I don’t mean you should strive to be a disciple who is not a disciple. Disciples who, ultimately, are not disciples, ultimately don’t go to heaven but hell. So have a category for this reality, but do not be in that in that category, if you understand me.
How does Jesus respond to the crowd?
At this point, anyway, he seems to let them go. In v. 66–67 we read, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “‘Do you want to go away as well?’”
I will say, though, Jesus doesn’t just let them go. This is not the only ministry moment he has planned. And he certainly doesn’t just let his twelve go.
Think back with me where I began and that locker room scene. It makes a difference—a great difference—when the coach says that if you don’t like this, you can leave, whether the coach wants you to stay. The wording of the Greek implies that Jesus expects them to stay and wants them to stay. We might call this reverse psychology. Jesus is not saying to the twelve, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” so much as he’s saying, “I know you just witnessed something hard, yet I know—deep down—you don’t want to leave.” Yet he asks it as a question to draw out a response. I believe if you’re struggling, that’s how Christ is speaking to you. He’s telling you, “I know you’re wrestling with something hard. I want you to say. What would you like to do?”
How do the twelve respond to Jesus?
We know through the words of Peter. “Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God’” (vv. 68–69).
I love Peter’s question in v. 68 because it feels so honest. Do you see it, church? You can be honest with Jesus. You can be brutally honest with Jesus about all your doubts and fears and worries and the way you’re troubled by him… You can do all that if you commit by faith to Jesus as your Lord. I’ll show you what I mean. When Peter says, to whom shall we go?, it implies he’s looked around. So honest. He’s saying, “It’s kind of awkward to be your disciple sometimes, Jesus. But where else can we find eternal life?”
Yet for all his honesty, you see in Peter a wiliness to do what the crowd was unwilling to do. What does he call Jesus? He calls him “Lord.” In that short phrase, coupled with the statement about finding life in Jesus, Peter says with his heart, I’ll feed on you, and I’ll drink on you, and I’ll be linked to you by faith no matter what.
But that’s not actually what he says. He doesn’t say, I. He says, we. I love the role he played among the disciples. This was a moment, from a human perspective anyway, that could have gone either way. We can make fun of loud and boisterous Peter who always must speak up. But do you also see the way his leadership would have emboldened the other men? Sure, everyone has to make their own decisions about Jesus, but it sure helps to have someone lead you.
You can do this for others. You may need to be a Peter for others. You may need to be the one who looks at your friend or coworker and says, “Yeah, I have those same struggles too. But where else will we find such great forgiveness? Where will we find such a kind and strong savior? Where else will be find life except in the living Jesus?”
Conclusion
As we close, let me draw your attention to just one more place. Look at vv. 61–62.
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
That line about ascending to where he was before says a lot about who he is. If he was in heaven with the Father before, and he goes there again, Christ is no mere man. But I’ll ask, how will Jesus get to heaven? Through the cross. Jesus was going to give up his life for the sake of others. And that, a messiah who dies and a king who dies, was an even greater stumbling block to the proud. They wanted a hero leader, not a suffering one.
But if they could have been humble enough to see it—if we can be humble enough to see it and taste it—we can have Jesus as both. For those who know their sin, the cross is precious, not an offense. And then there’s the empty tomb. Then the ascension to the throne of the universe, from where he will come again.
Let us taste and let us see he is good. Let us respond to Christ, as one author in the New Testament puts it, not as those “who shrink back and are destroyed, but [as] those who have faith and preserve their souls” (Heb. 10:39). I’ll invite the music team forward so we can have a time of response through singing. Let’s pray. “Dear Heavenly Father. . .”
Sermon Discussion Questions
What objections do you have, our have you had, with Jesus and Christianity? What “hard sayings” of Jesus have given you the most trouble?
Have you ever known a time when you walked away from Jesus? What about those close to you? What brought you back, or what brought your friends back (if they have come back)? If they have not, spend some time praying for them.
Benjamin mentioned ways we could be like Peter. We can be honest with our struggles as long as we do it from an overall posture of faith (i.e., Lordship). And we can also be like Peter in the way we encourage others to keep following. Who has done this for you? How can you do that for others?
Jesus has not gone to “where he was before.” He did it through the cross. How can the cross be a stumbling block (i.e., an offense) to some and to others something precious (see 1 Cor. 1:18–31)? Which is it to you?
