John 6: "This is a hard teaching - who can accept it?"

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

(John 6:60)

John 6 contains a series of events, all related.  On account of the healings he has been performing, Jesus has attracted large crowds who want to know more.  When they follow Jesus up a mountain, and afterwards famously feeds the crowd of 5000 from five loaves and two fishes.  Following this, he withdraws and later walks on water, meeting his disciples who are rowing through a storm.  The next day, the crowds still seek Jesus and he teaches in the synagogue at Capernaum.  It is at the end of this discussion that many of the disciples say: "This is a hard teaching.  Who can accept it?"

But what was so 'hard' about Jesus' teaching?

It would be possible to go into a lot of detail unpacking Jesus' words here, along with the reactions and questions of the disciples.  However, I'm just going to make a few brief observations from this passage:

1) It's hard because it requires us to put aside our own desires.

Jesus starts by saying: “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life" (6:26-7). I wrote on a very similar theme a few days ago, except that the subject was not food (or general material and bodily sustenance) but healing and health. God obviously wants me to make this point again!

Look, if we truly appreciated the best thing available to us, our desires would be aligned with what Jesus is giving, but the truth is we seek other things. These may be good things, but the best thing at the top of hierarchy is knowing God. If we seek Jesus because we want to fulfil other desires ahead of this, he is not what we're looking for. But it's hard to put aside the things we're accustomed to seeking. As C.S. Lewis puts it: We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

2) It's hard because we have to fully trust in Jesus, and can't do anything ourselves

We are proud creatures. I was once talking to a fellow student during a university mission event, and I spoke of the things God had done in my life. The student was saddened and slightly outraged, because he felt that I was diminishing my own achievements. It was as though I (or abilities, grit, determination, or whatever other character trait he may have ascribed) was a god and I was blaspheming for failing to give it the due respect deserved.

We like to do something: feel that we've played a part, however small. The crowds asked Jesus: “What must we do to do the works God requires?” (6:28) But Jesus answered “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (6:29). He goes on to say later in the conversation: "It is the spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all" (John 6:63).

Of course, the wonderful thing is that we are wonderfully made and do get to do some doing: For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do; (Ephesians 2:10), but this is only in the context of saving grace that comes wholly through God. It is he who created us and he who moves us. We never have any reason to consider ourselves better than anyone else - for all were made in the image of God.

But understand this - the teaching is hard because of our hearts. Jesus is not asking us to complete some tricky set of tasks, to follow some hard rules or even to undertake rigorous study so that we understand complex concepts (although some may subsequently be called to the latter task). At another time, Jesus said: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30). No, in order to have life in him, we need only to look to him. To trust in him. Because as Jesus teaches here: "..my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life...” (6:40).  In practical terms, that means saying "Jesus, I believe and trust in what you say about yourself, I accept your gift of sacrifice as forgiveness and removal of my sins, and I want you to change me to be more like you".

I became a follower of Christ about 18 years ago, and yet sometimes this still feels like a hard teaching. It's so hard to let go and to fully trust in Jesus and his plan for the world. I long for those I love to come to know God and yet I have to trust that he is in control; that he may chose to work through me, but that ultimately he is good and loving and that he can bring people to himself. I have to trust him to provide: He has blessed me richly with material stability and yet I still struggle to trust him fully with my income.

But that is the point. It's impossible in our own strength.  The thing that can be the hardest to accept is also the greatest comfort. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them" (John 6:44) means that we don't have to have amazing faith or spirituality - because it is though the work the Holy Spirit who convicts us, that the Father draws us to himself. And we can keep asking him to do that, and trusting that we will. It's a hard teaching, but we have God to make it possible in our lives.

So don't be discouraged - be encouraged.  God is there to draw us to himself.  When we realise we can't do this in our own strength, the teaching isn't quite so hard.