surrender, reach, live

Wednesday of the

Third Week of Easter

April 29th

READING: John 6: 35-40

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

~~~

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

REFLECTION

Occasionally Jesus, as John tells the story, breaks into what might well be called love poetry. There is so much pathos – in the traditional sense of “feeling” – in his gentle accusation “I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.” There’s a funny little equation going on in John’s writing here: gods in the ancient world weren’t meant to feel, yet John wants us to see that Jesus and the Creator are one (John 10:30). Here, as yearning-Jesus calls on his followers to believe, there’s an awful lot of not very (traditionally) godlike feeling going on. John wants us to get that (see John 11:35).

Just believe, guys, girls. And he’ll ache later, too (John 20: 29) for us, for we have not seen. Just believe, folks. I’ve suggested that as we surrender into that work of the Spirit, that means we don’t have to work at belief, we can surrender into belief, despite our doubts and our rationalities.

No, not every day. Dammit: we’re human. There are days when my doubts, or emotions, or bank balance, or the horrible machinations of politics and ecological well-being (or its absence) have me screaming in unbelief. Jesus goes there too (Luke 22:42, Matt. 27:46).  Admittedly in extremis, and very understandably. Most of us don’t go down that far to the depths, though for some who struggle with depression the feeling will be just that, and sometimes the darkness wins. The Third Person of the Trinity becomes critical at that point: “I can no longer believe, so please, please God, believe for me and within me.” For me it has always helped to struggle-reach out with my hands in communion and receive the “for-us-the-body-and-blood” in those times, but as Covid reminds us, even that is not indelible. That was often the case long before Covid-19: ask Terry Waite. Ask divorced people in many communions, and until not so long ago our own. Ask LBTGQI+ people likewise.

So Jesus glances forward to “the last day.” I have no idea what that means. We don’t. No one does. What I do know is that the yearning heart of Jesus will reach out eternally, inviting belief in him, and that whether we feel it right now the Spirit who believes “in” him will believe in us and with us and for us, and whatever “the last day” is we too will be lifted up into the eternities of divine love.