What do you do when you are faced with a question for which you don’t have answer? Questions that rock your faith? Questions that cause you to question the goodness of God because what you are going through doesn’t feel good?                                         The Apostle Peter provides us with some guidance by his response to a puzzling teaching by Jesus, a teaching that not only didn’t seem good, but it was also offensive─a teaching that must have caused Peter to question whether he should keep following this man named Jesus.

Just the day before, Jesus had performed an astounding miracle. With only five loaves of bread and two fish, he fed over 5,000 people. It is no wonder that the people followed Jesus to Capernaum. But instead of feeding them another miracle meal, Jesus taught them about the “bread of God” that gives life to the world. (John 6:33) This sounded even better!

“Sir, they said, “Give us that bread every day.” (John 6:34)

But Jesus’ response was not what they expected! Jesus declared,

“. . . I am the bread of life. . . I am the bread that came down from heaven.” (John 6:35, 41 NIV)

When the people heard this, they were confounded and began to murmur and argue among themselves as to what Jesus meant. But then he continued,

“Yes, I am the bread of life! . . . I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I offer so the world may live, is my flesh.” (John 6:48, 51 NLT)

What? Did Jesus really say that this heavenly bread is his flesh and that we have to each his flesh? This sounds like cannibalism! To clarify further, Jesus said,  

. . .“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you.. . . For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  (John 6:53, 55-56 NLT)

Eat his flesh? Drink his blood?  Hearing this teaching for the first time would be offensive to us today, but it was particularly offensive to these First Century Jews. Remember under Old Covenant laws, God declared that He would “set his face against anyone who ate blood.” They weren’t even allowed to eat meat of animals from which the blood had not been drained.

Not only are the people stunned by what Jesus is saying, but even his own disciples are offended. And it’s important to note that at this point in Jesus’ ministry the number of disciples following Jesus were greater than those who had followed John the Baptist. But it was because of this teaching that,

Many of his disciples said, “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?” . . . “At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him.”  (John 6:60, 66 NLT)

Not a few, but many! So then Jesus turned to the Twelve Disciples and asked this critical question, “Are you also going to leave?” (John 6:67)

And Peter replied,

“ . . . Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know You are the Christ. You are the Son of the living God.” (John 6:68-69 NLV)

A remarkable answer, because there is no doubt that Peter had questions for which he didn’t have an answer. How could this teaching, this offensive teaching that flew in the face of everything he had been taught, how could it be good? You don’t eat flesh. You don’t drink blood, certainly not human blood. This teaching was just as difficult and offensive to him as it was to those disciples who turned away and stopped following Jesus.  He had to be struggling with the question: Do I leave, or do I keep following Jesus?

Even though Peter did not understand what Jesus meant when he said to eat his flesh and drink his blood, what Peter did know without question was this foundational truth─that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God! And this is what he fixed his eyes on, not on what he didn’t understand, not on what he didn’t have an answer for, but rather what He knew was truth, that Jesus is the Christ!

Imagine his excitement and maybe even the relief, when on the night before Jesus is crucified, Jesus took the bread of the Old Covenant Passover, blessed it, and said, “Take eat, this is my body which is broken for you.” Then when he took the cup and said, “Drink it for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matt.26:28)

On that night, Jesus revealed the mystery that answered the question of how to eat his flesh and drink his blood by establishing the emblems of the bread and the cup, which is how we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion today! I wonder if Peter along with the others said to themselves, we are so glad we didn’t stop following Jesus, that we didn’t allow this difficult teaching to derail our faith.

If they had walked away from Jesus because of what they hadn’t understood and seemed so offensive in Capernaum, these men would have missed out on God’s good plan to be the ones to establish His Church here on earth. They had to put that difficult teaching that stirred up all those questions that rocked their faith and set it to the side and make the choice to just keep following Jesus─just keep their eyes on him. They made that choice because they knew the answer to the most important question about who Jesus is—that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And that is what we need to do when we are faced with questions for which we don’t have an answer, questions that rock our faith, when God’s good plan for our lives doesn’t feel good─those uncomfortable, faith-shaking questions.

We need to put what we don’t understand, what we don’t have an answer for to the side, on that spiritual shelf and let it rest in God’s hands, and make that choice to keep following Jesus, the One we know who is the Christ, our Savior, Our Redeemer.

Keep your eyes on Jesus, not on the questions for which we have no answer, but on the One who is the Answer!

(This blogpost is excerpted from a message I spoke at Community Christian Church. The whole message can be accessed at https://cccsterling.org/media/does-god-have-a-good-plan-for-my-lifec