That Scandalous Jesus
That Scandalous Jesus
John 6:60–71 Most of the crowd walked away. Twelve stayed.
I Didn't Sign Up for This
John 6:60–71 — Most of the crowd walked away. Twelve stayed.
Have you ever had a moment where you thought, I did not sign up for this?
When I was growing up, a neighbor asked me to come over and help with “a few things.” I said, “yes,” thinking it would be about 20 minutes of moving boxes; turns out, “a few things” was a couple of hours of hard work. I had no means of escape, so I was stuck there. But if I'd had the ability, I would have bailed.
Maybe you've experienced something like that. (Then again, maybe you've been that neighbor!)
God's Metric of Success
We're at the end of John 6, and most of the crowd following Jesus is having exactly that kind of realization.
The same crowd who were eager to find Jesus when he was multiplying bread is now shocked by what Jesus has been teaching — saying things like, “I am the true bread from heaven,” and, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you have no life in you.”
Most of the people who joyously followed after Jesus earlier have decided they've had enough. They bail.
Let's pause to consider God's metric for success in John 6. It is not the five thousand families who showed up for the bread-and-fish outreach — but the twelve who remained after everyone else deserted.
Start Closer to Home
Verses 60–61: When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?”
That word offense is where I got the title of this sermon. The Greek is skandalizō — where we get the word scandalize. The things Jesus is saying and doing are scandalizing to these people. That is not who I signed up for, Jesus.
And notice, John deliberately identifies this crowd as disciples.
It's really easy for me to read a story like this and think about those people out there. Those foolish people who rejected Jesus. But John wants us to start a little closer to home. How have I, as a disciple of Christ, acted like this? How have I been scandalized by Jesus?
Have we been trying to tame Jesus? Have we put him in a box where he fits all of our categories and won't say anything we don't expect?
And thankfully, God keeps bursting out of every box I build for him.
We like a tame Jesus who offers us forgiveness and comfort, but perhaps not the one who challenges us and speaks into our life choices.
I like a Jesus who condemns all the sin in everybody else, but gives me a pass and pats me on the back.
Are we ready for Jesus as he actually is?
If You Can't Take the Cross, You Won't Take the King
Verse 62: Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
What he's saying is, if you can't accept my body and blood, you'll never understand who I really am.
The word cross never shows up in John chapter 6. But it is absolutely where the whole story is pointing — actually, every page of John is pointing us to the cross of Christ. When Jesus talks about giving his body and his blood for the life of the world, he's not talking in the abstract. He's talking about his crucifixion. Christ will give his life, so we can live.
The Ascension is the vital next part of that story. Jesus is not a strange Jewish rabbi with fanciful ideas. He is the Son of God, the creator of the universe, who is going to give his life so that we can be saved. He came from heaven, and will return there again — to sit at the right hand of God as king and ruler of the cosmos.
The one who gave himself for me is the one to whom my life is owed.
That's the call and challenge of the gospel. Christ did not offer us forgiveness so we could go live our lives however we want; the Bible says we were bought with a price. My savior and redeemer is my Lord and my master — what he says goes. So I receive his forgiveness, and I also give him my allegiance.
The Scandal of Jesus
“The One who gave himself for me…” The cross of Christ reveals two incredible truths: First, our sin is deeper than we ever possibly imagined. Second, we are more loved than we could have ever dreamed.
That's the heart of our gospel, but it might sting for some — because the message of Christianity does not say you're basically good, you just need a little course correction. That's what our culture wants to say. No, the gospel says that our sin was so great that the King of the universe had to die just to save you. There was no other way. The only solution to our intractable problem was that the Creator himself would come, take on our sin, and die on the cross.
We could not will the good. We could not choose to save ourselves. There was no hope.
And yet, the depth of our problem reveals the great love of God. Because in spite of all that, he willingly and joyfully endured the cross just to save you and me.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
— “The Love of God,” v. 3. Lines attributed to Meir ben Isaac Nehorai, Worms, c. 1050; added by Frederick M. Lehman (1868–1953) to his 1917 hymn.
“Is the One to whom my life is owed…” This second line offers an even deeper challenge to our pride and autonomy. In Christ, I don't actually just get to go live my life however I want. Jesus is King; therefore, I should allow him to speak into my life.
This is what Jesus is driving at. He tells these disciples, Are you offended that I'm talking about my death? What about when you realize that I'm actually the king of the universe?
Neither Puppets nor Orphans
Over the weekend, I watched Pinocchio with my kids, and I realized there are some deep Christian themes in that movie.
It starts with a wooden puppet on strings. Geppetto prays, the blue fairy comes, and she gives Pinocchio life and takes off his strings. He's still made of wood, but now he looks like a real boy; he can talk, he has some sort of free will. The problem is that the whole movie is him squandering that free will. He abandons his father and becomes basically an orphan, and all the orphan boys get taken over to Pleasure Island, where they engage in all manner of debauchery — at least as far as a G-rated Disney movie will allow. They squander all of their free will, and they literally become animals. They turn into donkeys.
Right there are two caricatures of the Christian faith.
On one hand, some have thought that if God is sovereign, then free will must be an illusion. We're just puppets on a string. We're Pinocchio at the beginning of the movie.
The other extreme would say God is distant, nobody is looking over your shoulder. You are completely autonomous, and you use your free will however you want.
But we are neither puppets nor orphans.
Pinocchio eventually rescues his father from the bottom of the sea, the blue fairy shows up again, and he becomes, for the first time, a real flesh-and-blood boy. It happens because he's now reunited with his father.
This helped me understand an apparent contradiction in what Jesus says next:
“No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (verse 65)
Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” (verse 67)
Throughout this chapter, Jesus keeps emphasizing a theme that is central to the Reformed tradition: the sovereignty of God. No one can choose God on their own, and Jesus keeps saying it is God who draws, God who calls people to himself.
But I don't think that second question is a fake question. I don't think he's play-acting. He's offering a genuine decision — their free will, their moral choices actually do matter. Jesus is giving them that real choice right after saying that nobody comes to him unless it is granted by the Father.
So how do we reconcile those two? In the Bible, God's providence and human agency do not conflict. If we were to ask God, “Did you choose us, or did we choose you?” God's answer would be, “Yes!”
John does not offer a philosophical answer to how these two reconcile, but he does expect us to hold them together in the mystery of faith. Here's my short answer:
We are not puppets. We do have real free will and real moral responsibility. We're also not orphans. God does not abandon us to our fate. We find our true life and our true identity as children in the arms of our Father.
Are You Not Yet Drawn?
St. Augustine delivered a sermon on John 6 in the early 5th century AD. He offers this beautiful invitation:
“Are you not yet drawn? Well, pray to be drawn.”
— Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John 26.2
I love that Augustine doesn't look out and say there's a line in the sand and if you have not received Christ, then you're out of luck — clearly God has not chosen you. Instead, he insists: if you're not drawn to God, then ask God to draw you.
Maybe I can't will the good. But maybe I can want that I willed it. And so I can ask God: draw me in.
Perhaps you can identify an area of your life that you feel like you've closed off to God. Maybe it's your finances, or that relationship, or that activity — God, everything but that.
Taking our cue from Augustine, perhaps the beginning of transformation is to pray: I don't want you to speak into this yet, but God, I wish that I wanted it. I'm not drawn, but God, would you draw me?
Fearless Evangelism
This also gives us a powerful way to approach evangelism as we think about our friends, our family, and our neighbors. Start by asking God to open their hearts. It is God alone who draws all people to himself.
Some have assumed (wrongly) that in the Reformed tradition, evangelism is meaningless — if God chooses who he chooses, then what's the point? Evangelism seems very weak if free will is an illusion.
But that's simply untrue. In the Reformed tradition, evangelism becomes fearless.
I share the good news of Jesus with complete confidence and boldness, because God actually does want to use people. God is forming us into true, responsible partners in his plan. Our choices matter in God's universe.
But I also rest, knowing that it's not up to me. I don't have to be anxious or fearful that if I say the wrong thing or stumble over that answer, then I've failed. When somebody comes to faith through something I may have said, I don't take any credit. God is the one who draws all to himself. So I don't have to manipulate the conversation or “close the deal.”
That gives me great confidence and great humility at the same time: God wants to use me, and it's not up to me. Both of those are true.
Do You Want to Leave as Well?
Peter responds to Jesus' question with one of the strongest affirmations of faith in the Gospels:
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.
We started with the crowd not knowing if they had signed up for what Jesus was about. I don't think Peter knows either. He still doesn't understand the cross; he doesn't know what kind of suffering he will endure for Christ's sake.
He doesn't say, Jesus, you answered all of my questions. I don't have any doubts. He doesn't say, Jesus, you're going to give us a life of comfort and happiness with no suffering from here on out, so of course we're going to follow you.
And yet he can stand there confidently and say: To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Peter is not saying, hey Jesus, you're a great supplement to my already great life — like a spiritual multivitamin. Peter is saying: you are the very source of my life. You are the ground of my being. You are the foundation of my life. To whom shall we go? You have the only words of eternal life.
I like that he says to whom shall we go, not where should we go. Because at its core, Christianity has never been a system of religion. It's not a self-help module. It's not a wise guru saying, here are the ten steps to make your life better, to become healthy, wealthy, and wise. At its core, it has always been about a relationship.
Which lets us rephrase the question we started with. Peter is not saying I know exactly what I signed up for.
He's saying, I know who I've said yes to.
Proximity Warning
The chapter ends with a dark foreshadowing — Judas, one of the twelve, will betray Jesus. It highlights an important theme in John, and leaves me with one final challenge in my own faith. The inverse of Jesus' question, “Do you want to leave as well?” is found in John 15 — remain in me, and I will remain in you.
Proximity to Jesus is not the same as abiding in him.
It would seem that Judas was in proximity, without a real relationship. He went to the services, the Bible studies, the mission trips, without grasping the One who had the words of life. So, as we close out this chapter reflecting on Peter's great affirmation, let's not become complacent. Pause and ask whether our activity near Jesus is in any way becoming a substitute for a relationship with him.
A Prayer to Close
Think through the trajectory of this story. We started with a crowd of disciples who were offended at Jesus. Are there any ways that I've tamed Jesus, put him in my little box? I like Jesus in this area of my life, but I don't like the challenges. I don't like the parts where he starts to convict me. Are there ways I'm pulled to trust in other avenues, other people, other voices? Have I really, truly made Jesus the source, the ground of my being?
Pause, and allow Peter's words to become your own. Is this the affirmation that you yourself could affirm today?
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.
This week:
- Name the offense. Where has Jesus scandalized you lately — what has he said or asked that you'd rather he hadn't?
- Pray to be drawn. Pick the room you've closed off to God and pray Augustine's prayer over it: I don't want this yet, but God, I wish that I wanted it.
- Share it fearlessly. Give the story away to one person this week — then leave the drawing to God.
