Have you ever heard a word spoken from the pulpit that completely rocked the congregation and made it feel like an earthquake had just split the church wide open? I have. It took months for the congregation I was part of to recover from it. Some may not have even yet! Even though harsh, I believe it was still a truth no one else dared speak.

How often does a hard truth ever “tickle” our ears? What we decide to do with it is exactly the same choice Jesus’ disciples were given in the sixth chapter of John.

Chapter six opens up friendly enough. A growing crowd had been following Jesus. They were watching Him with curiosity. Some wanted to do the works of God just like Him, some were there because He was the grand entertainment of the day, others perhaps to speculate and judge.

Jesus, aware that Passover was approaching, feeds them all (verses 1-14) and then notices they intend to grab ahold of Him and make Him king (verse 15), so He quietly slips away. Knowing His purpose kept Him from being compelled by the popular vote.

As we continue to build up to the audacious moment, the next thing we see Jesus do is walk on water – and then there comes this little miracle that no one hardly notices or pays much attention to… The disciples are over three miles away from the shore they left behind when they see Jesus walking on the water. It’s interesting to note that the widest part of the Sea of Galilee is around 8 miles, so we might consider they were perhaps half-way across. But as soon as Jesus gets into the boat, they are immediately at the shore on the other side, where they were going. ZIP!

Back to audacious… The desperate crowd He left behind notices He’s no longer on their side of the Sea and they find a way to follow Him. Amazed, they start asking questions. Here’s where it begins to get interesting. Jesus points out their motivation is to fill their belly (verse 26). This is important, keep it in mind!

Jesus wants them to understand that there is a way they can be filled with a bread that gives life, not a bread that perishes. He says plainly in verse 35 AND verse 48: “I am the bread of life”. But they were so focused on the temporary that they failed to grasp the eternal, and so Jesus is about to draw a comparison that will either help them get over themselves or send them running.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

BOOM, there it was. BUT WAIT, there’s more! Jesus didn’t stop there. Seeing that they began to argue about how He could possibly give them His flesh to eat, He decides to drive home the hard truth even more:

 ⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Whaaaat?!!! GROSS!! I’m sure that’s what some in the crowd must have been thinking. And just in case you’re thinking Jesus may have said this in an open field somewhere, think again. He said it in the synagogue! In other words – if that was today, it would have been IN CHURCH!

⁵⁹ Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

So there you have it, the big fat hard audacious truth that split the crowd down the middle. Of course we have the beauty of hindsight and know He was speaking metaphorically as The Lamb who was to be crucified, but they were failing to see beyond the surface. And one of the most interesting verses in this whole chapter is not only for what it says but more so because of the happenstance placement, for here is what we read in John 6:66:

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

Coincidence? You decide.

This may have caused the equivalent of a modern-day church split, but the chapter does not end in discouragement. Jesus, turning to the twelve, asked if they would leave too. Bless Peter who comes in with just the right words to say:

⁶⁸ …“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, ⁶⁹ and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Amen.