John 6:60-69 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.” From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

When I was attending Seminary in St. Louis, my wife got a job teaching on the Illinois side of the river. We moved over to the little town of Worden – less than 900 people – which is about 45 miles from the seminary. I made the commute to class three or four days a week, depending on my schedule that term. For the most part, the drive wasn’t too bad, except when you came to the bottleneck at the Mississippi River bridge. In order to keep the number of days I had to drive into class to a minimum, I took one or two night classes each term, since those classes only met once a week. During the winter term, Mondays were tough. I had classes at 7:30, 8:30, 12:30, 1:30, then a class from 3-6 and another from 6-9. Those were long days. On one of those Mondays, I looked out the classroom window around 5:00 p.m. and noticed that it was starting to snow – big, fat, wet flakes. During my 6-9 class, it was really coming down. By the time class was over that night, there was over two inches on the ground and it was still coming down. I was not looking forward to that drive home.

Going through St. Louis wasn’t too bad, even going across the river. It was slow going, but there had been enough traffic to keep the lanes clear. However, once I crossed the river, the roads were pretty bad, and the snow was really coming down. I was driving a little Dodge Colt, which made a Volkswagen look big. Determined to make it home, I slid in behind a semi and stayed in his tracks. This was working well. We were moving slow, visibility was low, so I just kept my eyes on his taillights and made my way up Interstate 55. Everything was fine until I glanced off to the right and saw that I was about to pass my exit! I bounced across the snow mound and made it off the Interstate. It took me 20 minutes to go the last four miles. Those roads had no tracks on them at all. I’m not really sure how much of the time I was on the road and how much I was driving in the ditch or through a corn field, but with God’s help, I made it home.

You have to be careful who you follow. I was doing fine following that truck, until I realized he was leading me to someplace I didn’t want to go. If you follow the wrong person, you will not end up in the right place. That should be obvious. And if that is true in earthly matters, it is even more critical in the Spiritual realm. There are a lot of false prophets out there that have people following them to a dead end. There is only one Savior you can follow who will lead you to forgiveness and hope and life and salvation.

In John 6, the people are asked to consider who they followed. Jesus has said some things that were hard to understand. He spoke about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. He called Himself the living Bread that came down from heaven. The people listening to Him were shocked and confused by His words. As this chapter began, Jesus fed more than 5000 excited followers. At the end of the chapter, He is down to 12 confused disciples.

Most of the crowd were really fans, not followers. They left when His words became too hard to understand, accept and believe. As long as He was feeding them and doing miracles, they were curious. But when Jesus started talking about His intentions, and the responsibility that went with being part of His kingdom, they began to drift away and lose interest. Jesus was not what they were expecting. They were hoping for someone to liberate them from the Romans, a breath of fresh air that would make everyone feel good, someone who would free them from hunger and work, and that wasn’t Jesus. He didn’t give them what they wanted. So they complained, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” And slowly but surely they started leaving. As the last of the fair-weather-followers were leaving, Jesus asked a question. He was looking for followers, not fans. He wanted disciples, not spectators. So our Lord turned to the 12 and asked, “What about you? Are you going to leave, too?” Peter’s response might sound familiar: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!”

Good answer! Keep following Jesus.