We are Called – Not To Understand – But To Believe

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a    John 6:24-35

Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun…. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me.”

What David did in last week’s reading – catches up with him in our first lesson today.  Led by his pride and arrogance, and urged by his desire, David has broken three of the Ten Commandments.  He has broken the Covenant with God.  He knew exactly what he was not supposed to do, it is all written in the Law, and despite God’s endless generousity to him, he went ahead and sinned anyway.

David has been able to avoid secular retribution for what he has done.  As king, he is the government, it is he who passes judgment, and he will not be brought to court for taking Bathsheba to his bed nor for sending her husband, Uriah, to his death.  But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord… and while David can escape worldly punishment for his crimes, in today’s reading it is brought home to him that he cannot escape punishment for his sins.

The Lord sends His prophet Nathan to David to express His divine anger, and we learn what happens when someone flies in the face of God.  For David it must have been a blow to the gut, a wrenching, terrifying moment, as he takes in what the punishment will be for his transgressions.  Did he hope that what he had done would be ignored?  Had he placed God on the same level as his human subjects, the ones he could so easily deceive?  He does not argue, or attempt to put up a defense.  With wisdom and regret, all he can say in response to the fury of the Almighty is, “I have sinned.”

And terrible things will befall David from here on in.  The child that Bathsheba conceived in their adulterous moment together, that child will die.  But God has a way of taking the worst of situations and making something good happen, something that will benefit Israel despite David’s fall from grace.  The God of Israel is also a god of justice and mercy.  Later, Bathsheba will bear David another son – who will become the wise king Solomon.  But that is in the future.  Today we hear only of God’s anger, and of the terrible fate that awaits the man who has incurred it.

The next day, when the people who remained after the feeding of the five thousand saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.  When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

Anyone who noticed the disciples leaving in their boat the night before would have been aware Jesus wasn’t with them.  He has reached the other side by walking on the water to the boat when it was already far from shore.  Thus, Jesus does not answer their question, but instead addresses what He knows concerns them most.  Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”

It is easy to see how so many of the Children of Israel failed to understand Jesus’ purpose.  They were expecting a worldly king, one who would put food in their bellies and money in their purses, a king who would defeat their enemies and restore their kingdom to power.  And, at first glance, it seemed to some that Jesus might fill the bill, might do all those things, but Jesus wasn’t about setting up a worldly kingdom.

We today tend to look for the same things in Jesus that the crowds looked for during His lifetime.  We still bring the sick to Jesus, though now we do so in prayer.  When times are difficult, and we go grocery shopping and have to pinch pennies, we pray to Jesus for help to fill our bellies and pay our bills.  Jesus is looked to as a source of every material gift and security we need – just ask the Lord for help.  That is what we have been taught.

We tend to see our Lord, our God, in a worldly light, evaluate Him by worldly standards, think of Him in ways we can understand – totally overlooking or ignoring the deeper Truth. 

Jesus said, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

And the people immediately question Him – wanting to know how they can perform the works of God.  And Jesus gives them the simple, but oh so hard to achieve answer, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”

Can this Person possibly be what He claims – the One on whom God has set His seal?  They ask Jesus for a sign.  As an example, they claim that Moses fed their ancestors with Mana in the wilderness.  Their mistake is that they are citing Moses as the Source, seeing only the human element in a Divine intervention. 

This is the way our human minds think – reducing things to levels we feel we can accept and understand - and Jesus must remind them it was not Moses, but God, who provided the food. 

Jesus said, “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jewish daily life rests on the Ten Commandments which the people call “the bread of life”.  The Commandments guide them and set the limits for a Godly way of living.  The Commandments are what sustain them.  It is amazing to hear them ask Jesus for this other bread, but like us, they are thinking in worldly terms.  They are still thinking of their bellies.

And in words beautiful and profound, Jesus said to them, “I Am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

In that simple statement, Jesus replaces the Old Covenant with the New Covenant. 

Both our lessons today point to a human tendency we cannot escape – the desire to reduce things to understandable levels.  Thus, we often rely on God to be both understanding and understandable – and though God is understanding, God is not understandable.  So, we run into trouble in situations where we know we are doing wrong, but for some reason we anticipate God responding on in a human way. 

David had everything in his life under control, or so he thought.  He could hide his sins from the world, but what he came to realize was that he could not hide from God.  God’s response to him was painful and terrifying.  The Jewish throng that followed Jesus and wanted to make Him king because He had fed them, tried to fit Him into their understanding of who the Messiah would be.  Jesus’ response challenged them, as it challenges us, to open our minds and hearts to a deeper Truth. 

What we think we want, is not what we need.  We would like to always understand, but we cannot. We have been told.  We know the Law both of the Old Covenant and the New.  We are not called to understand God - we are commanded to obey.  To do this we need open hearts and open minds – and one Person above all else – the One on whom God has set His seal.  We need Jesus! 

Let us pray:

Dear Lord, we surrender to You today with all our hearts and souls. Please come into our hearts in a deeper way. We say, “Yes” to You today.  We open all the secret places of our hearts to You and say, “Come on in.”  Jesus, You are the Lord of our all our lives.  We believe in You and receive You as our Lord and Savior.  We hold nothing back.   Come Lord Jesus and dwell in our hearts.  We ask for Your love and mercy’s sake, Amen.