“A question of origins”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, August 20. 2022
John 6:41-51 (Forward, p. 22) CEV p. 1108
It has been said, of late, that if you don’t want to go into the hard and time-consuming work of investigating your family history, just run for public office and someone else will do it for you—including, as you might guess—all the skeletons and shady and disreputable characters. All that would be needed for such researchers to uncover this information would be a computer search engine—and lots of time.
It is too bad that such search capabilities were not available back at the time of Jesus, because the entire underlying question in today’s dialogue is the question of ancestry, of origins. The folks are saying, ‘how can Jesus say that He has come from God, when we know His parents?” But then, even with the most sophisticated search engine, would it actually reveal that Joseph wasn’t His biological father? I doubt it. And most surely, it would not suggest that His birth was supernatural, that is, without a human father. And, even if it did, would they believe it? Again, I doubt it.
So, as with so many things, it all boils down to faith, to believing and accepting what Jesus says about Himself, to faith in Jesus Christ (see verse 47). We have to have faith, to choose to listen and learn and come to Him and then eat of the supernatural food—which is Himself—which only He can give. And, if we do so, then such questions like those of origins—and lots other questions as well—fade into the background and become less than important. This happens because we now know Him for ourselves, and that, is all that matters. Amen.
Forward notes: “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day” (verse 44).
“I was surprised when one of my students with the bad habit of making wisecracks and skipping quizzes came to my office. Casually leaning in the doorway, he asked to drop my course. I regarded him for a minute, then answered, ‘You’re an intelligent person. Come back later after thinking it through.’ He looked surprised and left abruptly. That afternoon he returned. Fighting tears, he said that no one had ever given him a second chance. ‘I’ll try,’ he gulped, and hurriedly left.
“Sometimes the surface can hide more than we might guess. Those who complained about Jesus assumed that because they knew Joseph and Mary, he was just an ordinary person. Yes, he was flesh and blood, but more than that, he was the Son of God, willing to sacrifice his mortal body for the life of the world.
“Jesus sees beneath who we think we are. He looks past the surface into our real selves. We, too, need to hear and learn to look deeper so that we may open the door to eternal life.”
Moving Forward: “To whom do you need to give a second chance?