Sometimes the Gospel of John suggests Jesus is the one in control, the one with authority, who strides through John's narrative with purpose, determination and never a doubt.
The wine runs out but he knows what to do, water into wine, well, after all, he is the eternal Word and all things were made through him.
The crowd is hungry and there are no supermarkets and anyway precious little money; but tell them to sit down, let's bless what we've got, and just as in the wilderness with Moses there's food for everybody, and there are baskets of leftovers.
The sea of Tiberias is having one of its frenzies, gales and waves orchestrated in a performance of destructive energy, and it's dark, and Jesus is elsewhere. And John has Jesus walking on the water, three and a half miles out, Jesus speaks the great Johannine testimony of Jesus, "I am", and before you know it the boat is in a safe harbour.
His close friends Lazarus, and Mary and Martha are heartbroken; well the women are, because Lazarus has died and Jesus didn't come in time. But this time, even the resourceful one they call Lord, breaks down, and cries. Interpreting the tears of Jesus is futile, graceless curiosity. John is quite explicit; Jesus is gut wrenchingly sick with grief, and his words a mixture of sobs and prayers. But then resurrection happens; death is reversed; Lazarus is the evidence of a power beyond bearing, so much so that some who saw and heard about it wanted Jesus dead.
Reading John today I was in chapter 6, where the story is told about that feeding of the hungry crowd and the great saying of Jesus, "I am the bread of life." Near the end of the episode comes a moment of utter vulnerability, implied more than overt, but every bit as poignant and of great pastoral significance. Jesus said some hard things about himself, as bread to be eaten, and many of his followers had had enough and went away, left him, disowned his words and gave up on him.
John 6.67 is still best read in an older translation, I think.
Jesus said to the Twelve, "Will you also go away?"
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life."
In that brief exchange something profoundly human has taken place, choices are made that will set the direction of life for Jesus and the Twelve. Cords of friendship are woven that will have to survive denial, betrayal, fear, guilt, shame, despair and the desolate loneliness of hearts torn apart by crucifixion.
I have always come to this part of the Gospel and had to stop, and hear again that question, "Will you also go away?" There's a lump in the throat, an ambush of the heart, a glimpse of the actual cost to Jesus, of trusting and entrusting himself to others like Peter, and me. Sometimes to be honest, life can be such a hard journey to travel that turning back, going no longer with him into those valleys of deep darkness, feeling at a deep and distant level that the wine has run out, knowing a gnawing hunger for a life richer and more vital that what it is, that I'm ready to at least wonder if I made a mistake, or maybe Jesus did. Then, exactly then, I need to hear that question. "Will you also go away?"And having heard it, answer the same words as Simon Peter, the patron saint of the big mouth, and the big heart. "Lord to whom would I go? Only you have the words of eternal life."
And you know something? It isn't the sense that Jesus is above and beyond and in control of all the stuff that can and sometimes does go wrong, that helps most. It's those tears at the grave of his friend, and that vulnerability of Jesus the great befriender who asks those closest to him, "And you? Will you also go away?" And ever since I met Jesus and gave him my life, I've known only one answer to that question. And it's another question, "Lord, to whom would I go? Only you have the words of eternal life."
"The Word became flesh and dwelt in our midst, and we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth." And that glory and grace and truth comes amongst human folk like ourselves, and calls us friends. And knowing our capacity for selfishness and playing safe, and understanding from within the unreliability and anxieties that can drive us to do terrible things, still calls us friends, and wants us with him. "Lord to whom shall we go?...Only you have the words of eternal life".
I write this 49 years after I did what the whole Gospel of John was written to make possible; "These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." (John 20.31) And like the Twelve, a choice was made that set the direction of my life,
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