They went no more with Him

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. – John 6.66

This is a passage which is both sad, and at the same time, a little encouraging. Jesus had been preaching some pretty tough truths about the flesh and the Spirit and partaking of Himself as the spiritual bread of heaven. It was far too difficult for them to grasp. All they knew was that He was making some unusual demands and claiming that the only way to the Father was through Him.

So from this time on many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.

That is heart breaking. How can people He had poured His life into turn away and stop following Him? This was Jesus after all. He was The Teacher. He spoke of love and peace and of the kingdom of God.

But even Jesus did not keep all those who had followed Him.

Now we know that those who left Him were never truly His dedicated followers. They were just along for the buzz of this new religious celebrity.

I don’t know all about Jesus’ emotions, but I think the next verse gives us a sense of how He must have felt, but more on that anon.

But how can that be encouraging?

It is encouraging because we all know how it feels to love and care and pour our lives into people and then have them turn their backs on us. It is comforting to know that it is not necessarily about us. (Of course we had better be sure that it is NOT us). Even Jesus had people turn on Him.

It sort of reminds me of when the people rejected Samuel and prophet/leader and demanded a king. God told him, ‘don’t be discouraged, they have not rejected you, they have rejected Me.’

We can’t give up when people we work with turn away. They did it to Jesus – we might expect it to happen to us.