Sunday, August 19, 2012: John 6:51-58
Perhaps we should not be too hard on the people who ate their fill on the mountain and chased Jesus down on the other side.
My nephew is a walking question mark. What’s for dinner? When will my daddy get a job? Will Grampa live to be 100? He does not know it, but his questions sound a lot like the ones that pop up in my news feed: How safe is our food supply? What will happen to the economy? Can Medicare cope with the rising number of baby boomers entering the system? Questions surround us, with more added each day in the face of every technological advance, political debate, ecological disaster or family crisis. It takes a special kind of wisdom to sort out which questions are the important ones.
The disciples found plenty of questions to ask both before and during their time with the earthly Jesus. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). “How can these things be?” (John 3:9). “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” (John 6:60).
Perhaps, then, we should not be too hard on the people who ate their fill of the bread on the mountainside and chased Jesus down on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Like people today they look for answers. “What must we do to perform the works of God? . . . What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe in you?” (John 6:28, 30).
