“Words that give life”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, August 23, 2022
John 6:60-71 (Forward, p. 25) CEV p. 1109
Right at this very moment I am in a profound state of shock and dismay and am deeply saddened and grieved. I have just received word that the youngest daughter of some dear friends of mine, only 44 years old, decided last Wednesday to end her own life. I cannot imagine the pain, dismay and disbelief that those parents must be going through. The fact I myself tried to take my life back in my early teen years doesn’t make this any easier for me to bear this. In fact, in some ways, it makes it even worse because I know something of the despair that can take over and envelop a person.
In today’s reading from John’s Gospel, Simon Peter, speaking for all the disciples, exclaims, in response to a question from Jesus whether they too will desert Him, “Lord, there is no one else that we can go to. Your words give eternal life” (verse 68). Jesus’ words do indeed give eternal life.
But then, why do some of us, like me and like this young woman, fail to hear them? For myself, I felt that I was totally alone, totally without help or hope or resources. Suicide seemed to be the only ‘way forward’, the only way out of the mess I was in. So, why didn’t I hear Jesus’ words of life, His words of hope? You might think that having been in church pretty well every Sunday for years meant that I had heard it, but I didn’t. There are two reasons, at least. For one thing, what Jesus could do in our lives was never mentioned. Instead, the impression I got was that it was ‘all up to us’. There was no mention of God’s grace covering for our inadequacies or failures and providing a way forward when we couldn’t manage it ourselves. Secondly, there was absolutely no teaching that we could actually get to know Jesus, have Him as a close friend and companion, and thus to personally be able to access His support and fellowship. Basically, I got the idea that we were ‘on our own.’
So, my question remains: how can we speak and make real to those who are needy and suffering, the words of Jesus that give hope, that give life, eternal life? Maybe one answer is that we need to do more than just speak those words, but also live them, also embody them with our lives, so that they become visible and real to others. And maybe we also need to be real, to be vulnerable enough to let it be known just what God in Jesus Christ has done, and continues to do, in our lives. Maybe telling our own stories are part of God’s story, part of Jesus’ words of eternal life. Amen.
Forward notes: “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (verse 63).
“The disciples find Jesus’s teaching about the spirit to be ‘difficult.’ ‘Who can accept it?’ they ask. The most important lessons are often the hardest. Words, for instance, are so much more than letters. Learning a foreign language brings that lesson home. It isn’t just spelling the words correctly; it is hearing and seeing people use them that truly teaches you the language.
“We learn to hear by listening to this child born in a manger, this one who in human form is the Son of God sacrificed for our sakes. Just as his words are not letters or sounds, he is not merely flesh and blood. It is Simon Peter who points the way, saying, ‘You have the words of eternal life.’
“Listening to those words of eternal life will open our eyes, our ears, our hearts. If we look past flesh and blood, if we look through the words to the meaning, we are given a new life. And by hearing his words as spirit and life, we too become the disciples of Christ.”
Moving Forward: “What part of Jesus’s teachings do you find most difficult? How can you study and learn more about these aspects?”