For When the Gospel Gets Uncomfy

‘“When many of His disciples heard this, they said, “This is a difficult and harsh and offensive statement. Who can [be expected to] listen to it?” But Jesus, aware that His disciples were complaining about it, asked them, “Does this cause you to stumble and take offense? What then [will you think] if you see the Son of Man ascending to [the realm] where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh conveys no benefit [it is of no account]. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life [providing eternal life]. But [still] there are some of you who do not believe and have faith.”’ (John 6:60-64, AMP)

Have you ever wondered how Jesus went from feeding the five thousand, to only have a handful of people at the foot of the cross when He died?

The truth is, Jesus had His twelve disciples that He hand-picked and called to ministry with Him, but there were other disciples that also travelled with Jesus to the different places that He went to in the three years He taught, ministered, and served. Not everyone went everywhere the way the twelve did, but Jesus had a way of attracting followers just by nature of what He was doing.

In fact, in John 6, we’ve seen that as Jesus is talking about being the Bread of Life and how we must believe to be saved, He’s talking to a great crowd of people at a synagogue in Capurnaum. These truths he is unpacking are things the modern Christian holds dear and is a well-loved passage of scripture, but in that synagogue, these were complex ideas that Jesus was speaking about. They were antithetical to what the Jewish belief system believed.

Here is Jesus, talking about how we must eat of His body and drink of His blood– essentially, how we must take Jesus into our very bodies and internalize our belief in Him– and some thought He was talking of actual cannibalism! Of course, some of the religious leaders were most likely twisting His words in order to confuse some in the crowd, but these ideas were in direct contention with what Jews believed. They believed salvation was their birthright, being the chosen people of God.

So add this to the fact that Jesus wasn’t avenging the Jews by vanquishing the Roman rule they were living under and establishing His heavenly kingdom on earth as a militant Messiah, and there was certainly a lot for the crowd to come to grips with. Even the disciples began to say that His statements were difficult to come to terms with; not because they were academically lofty, but because they were systematically challenging to come to grips with.

Jesus’ response is something we all have to come to terms with: “Does this cause you to stumble and take offense?” 

Does the Bible offend your flesh? Does God’s Word challenge your ideas of God and how His Spirit operates? Do Jesus’ teachings convict you of your sin and make you feel uncomfortable, shining a light on just how in need of a savior you are?

All these people that followed Him to the synagogue were high off a supernatural miracle and an inexplicable meal that fed an impossible number of people. They were exhilarated by this mysterious, puzzling man claiming to be the Messiah they waited for. They followed Him to see if they could get another fantastical meal and any other material needs met. 

They missed the point of following Jesus. They missed the entire message of eternal life and salvation from their sins. Do you want to be the same?

Too many people claiming to be Christians approach Jesus for what they think they can receive from Jesus: comfort, a sense of community in the Church, validation that they are a good person, power from a position, and probably a hundred other things. Many overlook the depth of their sin because it’s not a comfortable feeling. It takes some work to kill sin in your life and become more like Jesus, actively confronting how helpless they are without Jesus’ body and blood to close the gap our sin makes.

But Jesus makes an excellent point here in our key verse: If we can’t wrap our minds around these truths now– if the idea of being uncomfortable with our shortcomings is that unbearable on earth– how much more offensive will these things be on the day we stand before Christ in all His glory? How much more garish will our unconfronted flesh seem before His divine fullness?

Why should we give comfortability to our flesh that has no power to save? It has no benefit to us. But the Spirit gives life. It nourishes us in a way that real bread never could. Ultimately, Jesus’ Truth and God’s Word will offend people. Those people will turn away and they will cease to follow Christ, just the way the multitudes did after He fed them. Once the physical needs were met and Jesus started talking about deeper spiritual things, they lost their interest in following and listening. 

This didn’t surprise Jesus, and it shouldn’t surprise us. It shouldn’t surprise us when the Gospel offends their flesh. It shouldn’t surprise us when we come to find that many find it easy to turn away from Christ when they no longer feel there’s anything in it for them. It shouldn’t surprise us when we find that a multitude of followers turns out to be a small gathering. In fact, Jesus knew who exactly in that crowd would end up turning away. Even Judas followed Jesus and Jesus knew full well who Judas was lying in wait to become.

God’s Word will offend our flesh. It will make us feel uncomfortable and it will challenge the ideas of the world that think Jesus is purely tolerance and unquestioning acceptance. It will lay bare things within us that we would like to condone and ignore. The Gospel will point directly to our sins and challenge us to kill them. It will make us supremely uncomfortable and require us to consume it in its entirety. 

If we believe, we must also be willing to take that offense in stride and grapple with it. We would do well to ask God to pour out His life-giving Spirit for us and to offend us to the full extent of what is necessary to please Him.