“Do you also wish to go away?” My bride tells a great story about an extremely intelligent student, who when frustrated with a lesson, would beat his fists in the air and scream through his tears, “It’s too hard! It’s too hard!” Cameron knew that story and she has a card in her kitchen that says, “I am willing to do hard things.” And both Mother and Gran remind Oaklyn to “keep trying” when he says, “I can’t do it!” Both believe, failing to meet any challenge, is giving up on time, effort, and prayer.

1Kings sets Solomon before a crowd so great, “so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted” and likely he was overwhelmed by the challenge to rule G_d’s chosen people. In dream the Creator offers the King the assistance of his choosing. Solomon has an opportunity to ask for anything, but his desire is for “an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil…” G_d was pleased by the request, granted the request and more. “Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor all your life; no other king shall compare with you.”

St. John has Jesus teaching in the synagogue in Caper’na-um. Jesus had healed and fed; truly Jesus wanted these for all Creation. He now was teaching them of bread, which would give eternal life. Everyone was enthusiastic about such a loaf, until Jesus explained the source. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” Many “of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?'” Jesus knew there were among the disciples, some who did not believe, but assured all that the words that he spoke were “spirit and life”. Yet, coming to Him was granted only by G_d the Father. Food and teaching, the needs of the flesh were given to all, but the bread of eternal life was available only to those who believed. His words and bread, spiritual armor and spiritual food, are “eternal life.”

After that time many “drew back and no longer went about” with Jesus. I love Peter’s answer when Jesus asked the twelve, if such were their intentions, “Do you also wish to go away?” Peter responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter and the other faithful had been shocked and amazed almost daily since their call to service. Virtually every action and teaching of Jesus took them out of their comfort zone. None of them set out to work in the realm of the miraculous, but all had come to believe that their Master spoke only truth.

The Christ is the spiritual flesh and blood, the sustenance that preserves body and soul unto everlasting life. They fully knew that Jesus is “the Holy One of G_d.” While Jesus’s directives were often hard, His words are not “too hard!” Perhaps a personal challenge, but in His words were where the disciples, and where we, belong. Keep trying!

Pax,
jbt