21 Days of Prayer; a Devotion on JohnНамуна

John 6 | Will you leave me also?

Many disciples abandoned Jesus. They followed for a season – when there was free food from his miracles of multiplication; when there was teaching that they thought they got and it warmed their soul; when he performed acts of power and set them free from shadows or healed their sicknesses. When they thought he would do for them and be for them what they wanted. But when things didn’t quite go their way, when they didn’t have Jesus on their terms, when they found his teaching uncomfortable or unclear – requiring too much of them, they went their own way. Jesus asked the twelve, “Will you leave me also?” – Simon Peter boldly speaks up for the others ‘Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” True, indeed, to walk away from Jesus is to walk into nothingness, into the shadowlands, away from light and life. Yet, as we know, Peter and the others all did leave Jesus when the going got tough in Gethsemene. But Jesus, being Jesus, received them back. There are times when we leave Jesus – or at least distance ourselves because we find him too demanding, interfering with our desires. But we soon learn there’s no-where else to go, and no-one else to go to, with words that give eternal life.