My daily reading from the Daily Office takes me through John 6 regularly and every time I walk through it is the sense I am on holy ground. This is a moving text for me because it drives so deeply into our human motives and the desire of Jesus to strip us of all other desires except to have a driving passion to know God and his Kingdom.
The crowd was there because of Jesus feeding them. They weren’t there to hear his teaching. They were there for the show. That is how we are as humans. We like the show. Jesus gets at those motives in such an offensive way it sounds like he is calling them to some weird cannibalistic cult.
He isn’t being cruel. He is trying to strip away the foolish motives and call out the deepest motives to follow him.
Too often all we, as the American church, are all about is appealing the crowd. Get the numbers.
I have had more than one conversation with young adults who knew nothing of true discipleship and the beauty of Scriptures and the challenges of following Christ but they DID know the fun youth group they went to in high school and some cool concerts… oh, wait… that was CHURCH???
Seriously.
What they didn’t know was what it was to follow Christ. Several years of hanging around some cool kids and they couldn’t get to the core of what it was about, other than hanging out with some great friends.
Jesus, strip away our false motives. Get at our false hungers. Drive us to the deepest hunger of our soul, for that is where YOU are waiting. YOU are the way, the truth, and the life. Amen.
Apprentice 2 Jesus 