Faith • Biblical Reflections
“Do You Want to Go Away as Well?”: A Question for Desperate Disciples
Have you ever read a passage in the Bible, and found yourself thinking it to be rather odd? There’s no question that some passages in the Bible seem very strange when we read them at first. Consider passages like the time a donkey talked to Balaam (Numbers 22:27–30), the time God chose people who lapped water like a dog to be in his army (Judges 7:4–8), or the time Jesus spit on the ground, made mud, and spread it over a blind man’s eyes (John 9:6–7). John 6:53–71 certainly belongs among these odd passages:
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
There is no question that this passage is provocative, even weird. One could be forgiven for reading some of these verses and thinking that Jesus was encouraging cannibalism. The pagans who persecuted early Christians often did.
But here is the thing. At the heart of this passage is a question—a question that scares me and strengthens me all at once.
Do you want to go away as well?
Jesus is speaking to his disciples, those who are impressed by him, excited by him, intrigued by him. His disciples have already received benefits from him, and up until this point, have actually believed in him. This question exposes both false disciples and true disciples alike. Because that is what this passage is ultimately about—what does it mean to follow Jesus truly.
A life of discipleship—a life of following Jesus truly—is predicated on the reality of Jesus and the desperation of disciples. This passage reveals how easy it is to call ourselves a disciple—that is, until we are confronted with Jesus’s reality and our desperation.
Christianity makes a strange, bold claim: The God of the universe—God who “is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth”[1]—this God became a man of flesh and blood.
This is the first reality that Jesus used to challenge his disciples. This is something from which we cannot escape in the passage: Jesus was a flesh and blood person. We can almost imagine him as he talks—“Eat my flesh and drink my blood.” Jesus’ humanity is a central point of the entire gospel of John. John 1 begins with that soaring language: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (v. 1), and then just a few verses later declares: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (v. 14).
John is emphasizing Jesus’ humanity here—that this is no illusion, or hologram, or ghost. As truly as each of us is an embodied soul, reading this wherever this moment finds us, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became flesh and blood for us. This is the reality of the flesh and blood Jesus.
The second thing the reality of Jesus forces us to reckon with is life itself and how we think about it.
One summer, my wife, son, and I were on an airplane on our way to Florida to spend some time with family. Flying with a one-year-old is a special type of joy, so you can imagine our deep frustration when, after boarding smoothly and on-time, we spent the next hour and fifteen minutes on the runway in the plane, while a mysterious “maintenance” issue was addressed on the plane.
Finally, hundreds of Cheerios and a poopy diaper later, our plane took off and we were on our way. Our two-hour flight was smooth, I had my typical airplane Ginger Ale—it just tastes better on an airplane—and the pilot announced we were beginning our descent.
But then, he flew past the airport and did a big loop…and then another…and then another. Finally, the pilot came on over the intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen, all is alright, but as we were going in to land one of our warning lights came on that said we lost steering ability in our landing gear. It shouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve gone ahead and called out the ambulances and fire trucks for us.”
At the same time, the flight attendant walked past me and my wife and told us to hold on tightly to the baby. The woman next to us started shouting, asking where the nearest emergency exits were. The woman in the other seat next to us was clearly praying. Eventually, we landed—completely fine, anticlimactic. But I’d be lying if the thought of life after death hadn’t come suddenly, unavoidably to my head.
Eternal life is explicitly mentioned or referenced at least nine times in this passage. That’s every other verse. Airplanes not yet being invented at the time of Jesus, he could not use a faulty landing gear to shift his disciples’ perspective about life. Instead, he used vivid, frankly disgusting language to illustrate how one attains, comes to, and experiences eternal life.
Because here is the thing—Jesus is not interested in “easy-believism.” He wants to shock his listeners out of their expectations, out of their pre-set understandings of who he is and what he is about. Chapter 6 is full of misunderstandings about who Jesus is. Some think he is just a magic bread vending machine, so they follow him around for free food (vv. 26–27). Others think he is the solution to their political problem, so they seek to forcibly make him king (v. 15). Others genuinely do want this gift of eternal life about which Jesus has been talking throughout his entire ministry up until this point.
But Jesus is making the point that we receive eternal life in a surprising way. He says life comes through death; specifically, and particularly, his sacrificial death on behalf of his people.
In the Bible, especially the Old Testament (to which this entire passage alludes), flesh and blood language is most typically associated with sacrifice. Don Carson notes: “The primary symbolic reference of ‘blood’ in the Bible is not to life but to violent death, i.e. to life violently and often sacrificially ended.”[2]
This passage likely is not directly indicating the Lord’s Supper, although it has connections to it; the conclusion intended here is not that the bread and wine of Communion are literally the flesh and blood of Jesus. Jesus used sacrificial language that shocked his audience to announce his death! And when Jesus emphasizes that we are to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he uses the image of our absolute dependence on food to force us to come to terms with our absolute dependence on his death for us.
Does this feel self-centered? Imagine if I wrote here that you must rely on me and my writing in the same way that you rely on your breakfast—the most important meal of the day! That’s crazy talk—an audacious claim that cannot possibly be backed up by reality. And yet, that is precisely Jesus’ claim.
Often, we are so shocked by the language of flesh and blood that we miss the second part of verse 54: “If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” Jesus is making a universal, unique claim: “It is me—I am the bread of life, I am the necessary component for what true life—here on earth and on into eternity—really is.”
After all of this, in verse 60, his disciples—the ones who up until this point have gladly followed him—say, “This is a hard saying,” not hard to understand, but hard to accept. The disciples recognized the magnitude of Jesus’ words here.
Food and drink are basic, necessary building blocks for life. If we lack food and drink for long, we will die. Jesus is saying, then, “If you do not have me, you will die.” Of course this is a hard saying! Until we hear this claim of Jesus on us, we have not fully wrestled with the reality of Jesus.
Jesus recognizes the offense he has caused in verse 61: “Do you take offense at this?” A more straightforward translation might say, “Are you scandalized by this?” This stings.
What do we rely on for life? At our core, what is it that gives us life, joy, peace, happiness, and security? Is it how successful we are at work? How impressive we are to our friends? How theologically precise we are? Is it our sexual relationships? Money? Grades? What do we rely on for life?
Or maybe come at this another way. There are a lot of good reasons to go to church. I sincerely hope that you have a church home where you find rich, caring community. I sincerely hope that you are seen, known, and cared for there. I sincerely hope you are moved by the worship music, that you find people who share the same interests as you, or whatever.
None of these make us a disciple of Jesus. But it can sure feel like it…until the person of Jesus in all of his scandalizing glory stands in front of us and tells us to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
Why are we following Jesus? Seriously. Why? Is it merely because the Judeo-Christian system of morality makes sense to us? That is good and I am glad, but it’s not enough. Is it because someone has told you that being a Christian will make your life go more smoothly? Is it because your parents or spouse are Christians?
It is not good enough for Jesus to be your inspiration or our example or your teacher. He must be our food and drink, what we depend on.
This is a hard saying indeed. So hard that in verse 66, many of Jesus’ disciples turned back and no longer followed him. The shallowness of their commitment was revealed.
After many of Jesus’s disciples turn away from him, turned off by his words and disappointed that he wasn’t doing what they expected him to do, and after the crowd of hundreds slims down to just 12, Jesus asks the question:
“Do you want to go away as well?”
Jesus is not selling a bill of goods that he desperately needs people to buy. He is not interested in blind, uninformed loyalty that refuses to count the cost. Jesus is after disciples—devoted followers who look to him, learn from him, and live with him.
And this is what we see: the same truth that scandalizes some strengthens others. The disciples who stay have rightly recognized reality and now declare their desperation openly and unashamedly.
Jesus asks them, “Do you want to go away as well?” Peter, speaking for those who remain, says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (vv. 68–69).
Consider the second half of this statement first—where Peter has recognized reality rightly. Peter has heard the claims of Jesus, the claims that Jesus makes to being the source of all true life, and he says, “It is true. I believe it, I know it—you are the Holy One of God.” The ability to recognize reality rightly is a gift of the Father through the Spirit. But such recognition does not lead to disengaged passivity on the part of the disciples who stay; it does not negate their agency. Instead, Peter emphasizes, we have believed and have come to know. He describes the totality of faith.
What does this belief and knowledge center on? Jesus—“We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” This is the beginning, middle, and end of our faith—Jesus. This is a helpful place to begin. There are all sorts of serious, good questions that we need to think through and wrestle with concerning Christianity. But we must get the order right. The first question is this: Is Jesus who he says that he is? If he is, we have enough.
As C.S. Lewis famously argued, after reading the gospels, there are really only three ways of seeing Jesus: He’s either a liar, a lunatic, or he’s the Lord.[3] If a liar, he knew that he was not the Bread of Life that could bestow eternal life, and yet claimed to be anyway. If a lunatic, he thought he was the Bread of Life but actually was not. Or the most frightening reality of all—he is the Lord, the Holy One of God.
The twelve—the disciples who stay—have heard the reality that Jesus claims for himself and said, “Lord, it is true.”
Yet, if the only thing that defined disciples who stay was recognizing reality, they could adopt a posture of pride, even arrogance: “We’ve seen correctly; we know more than you do…”
But the first part of Peter’s response undercuts that completely. Peter begins his confession of Jesus as the Holy One of God not with a statement of his knowledge, but with a declaration of his desperation: “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
The disciples who stay have recognized reality rightly, but they do not sit secure in what we would call “certainty.” They, too, were confused, possibly even scandalized, by Jesus’ words. They have yet to understand the full plan. It makes no sense to them yet that the Holy One of God will himself be executed in humiliating fashion.
This is the beginning point of every confession of Christ as Savior and Lord: The recognition of the absolute bankruptcy of all other options. Peter’s response is not defiant or even devoted at this point – he’s simply desperate.
Will you go away as well?
The twelve, the disciples who stayed, had just witnessed a mass exodus of people who were following Jesus. And friends, we will experience things in this life that will shake your faith in Jesus: friends betraying us, horribly hurtful breakups, miscarriages, the death of people we love, the spiral of depression, and many more.
Peter’s confession in these moments contains a severe beauty. It is almost like he is saying: “Lord, I’d go away if I could, but I cannot—you have the words of eternal life. Where else do you expect me to go?
There’s something comforting in recognizing that our faith does not have to always consist in certainty and confidence, but that Jesus accepts, welcomes, even encourages desperate disciples like Peter, like me, like you. Because here is the key: Jesus does not locate the validity of our discipleship in the level of our certainty, but in our desperate dependence on him.
Do we then see how this question that Jesus asks, “Do you want to go away as well?” ultimately frees us?
It forces us back to the basics. Life gets full, complicated, confusing, hard. The longer we walk with Jesus, the more people we will see turn back from him. It is just simple math. Now, the beauty of this is that their story is not over. Some disciples turn away from Jesus here, just like Peter does at the end of Jesus’s life. But Peter comes back.
And so, I do want to say to those of us who have dear friends, dear family, who seem to have turned away from Jesus, that the end of the story is still to be written. The rest of John’s gospel is full of examples of people who come, over and over again, to Jesus. We have to think that some of these were those who came, who left, and then who came back.
Watching someone we love walk away from Jesus could start to make us think, “Wow, if they left, what’s keeping me here?” Come back to the desperate beginning of your faith: “Where else would I go? You, Jesus, have the words of eternal life.”
So, what do we do with all of this? If we are wavering—if following Jesus is starting to feel less shiny than it used to—take an honest accounting. The world is a “life-buffet.” A lot of other things in this world advertise themselves as “life-givers.” Are they really? Is a sexual relationship with our girlfriend, our boyfriend, really where we want to stake our claim to life? Is our job the place that we really want to think life is found? Is our reputation in front of others genuinely the place that we will find life?
Or is it Jesus? What if it’s true? What if Jesus really is all we need? What if his promises are exactly what they claim to be?
For the first time or for the thousandth time, look at Jesus.
Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.
[2] D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 296.
[3] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 40–41. In all editions, this is Book II, Chapter 3, “The Shocking Alternative”.