Words from the Rock
Does this throw you completely? What would happen if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where he came from? The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don’t make anything happen. Every word I’ve spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making. . . . This is why I told you earlier that no one is capable of coming to me on his own. You get to me only as a gift from the Father.
John 6:61–63, 65 Message
Jesus knows his words have really stretched his audience. He knows they’re confused and doubtful and possibly on the verge of just giving up. Perhaps they wonder why he doesn’t just tell them some more of those “nice” stories or do some healing miracles. Or maybe all his talk about bread has gotten their stomachs growling, and they’re wishing he’d just pull out some loaves and fishes and feed everyone.
Instead he’s pulling out the big guns. He’s laying it on the line, spelling it out that he really is the Son of Man and that he’s been sent from his Father. Everything he’s telling them is spiritual, and he gives them words of life. Maybe you wonder why it’s so hard for them to get it. Why does he have to keep pounding it into them?
For one thing, it’s not yet time for them to fully grasp who he is or exactly why he came. Jesus is aware of this. He knows he’s doing the groundwork. But the other reason, perhaps the bigger reason, is that the way God’s will is going to play out is not what these people expect. This is not the way they thought God would work. Thanks to some of their faulty leaders and wrong assumptions, they just never expected God to send them salvation and life in this way. Now maybe if Jesus was clothed in shining white garments trimmed in gold, and perhaps if he rode in on a huge white horse, shooting fire from his fingertips . . . well, that might have been more like it.
But that’s not how God is working. His plan is bigger and better and far beyond anything their human minds could imagine or dream. Yet they find it hard to budge from their old, worn-out, and wrong expectations. They had learned long ago to put God in a box, and it’s very difficult for them to let him out. Yet Jesus is getting ready to break that box wide open.
My Prayer
Dear God,
Help me never to put you in a box. Remind me of how big you are and how you work in my life in some unexpected but amazing ways.
Amen.
Final Word
Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.
Ephesians 3:12 NLT
Stone for the Journey
My God is full of surprises.