Jesus, The Bread of Life
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” 70 Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” 71 (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.) (NIV)
Why would Jesus follow Peter’s good confession in verse 69 with his reference to the betrayal in verses 70-71? Remember that many of Jesus’ other disciples had just left (John 6:66). They could not put their trust in him after the claims he made following the Feeding of the 5,000. But Jesus’ own twelve special disciples remained. These were also his apostles (a disciple follows, an apostle is sent out for a special purpose). Peter, speaking as he often did for the group, made an excellent confession of faith: “You have the words of eternal life… you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus was glad his disciples understood and believed in him, but there was bitterness, too. Jesus knew that he would be betrayed. In John’s Gospel, this is the first mention of Judas Iscariot, and John assumes that we probably already know that Judas would betray Jesus. The Lord calls him “a devil!” He doesn’t mean that Judas was merely troublesome or devilish, but that Judas had all the qualities of the devil himself. The devil had known God in the beginning, and betrayed him. Judas knew Jesus, had believed in Jesus, had performed miracles in Jesus’ name (Luke tells us that just before the Feeding of the Five Thousand, all twelve apostles had gone “from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere,” Luke 9:6). The devil turned on God, and Judas was turning on Jesus.
Jesus’ heart was broken over Judas’ betrayal. But Jesus’ heart was broken over our sins, too. That’s why he came into the world: to love us, to forgive us, to pay for our sins, and to crush the serpent’s head. He came to turn us back to him with his loving gospel of forgiveness and eternal life.
Something Extra:
Philemon 6
6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.
We learn by doing. That’s true with anything new that we try. Whether you want to learn to play a musical instrument, or learn to draw, or learn a new language, or learn to fix a car engine, there is only so much that can be learned by reading or by hearing somebody else talk about it. The best way to learn is by doing. That’s even true of being a Christian.
That means getting into the Bible and reading it. That means getting onto our knees every day and praying; asking God’s forgiveness for our sins and for God to give us understanding of his word. It also means showing our faith in our lives, by taking those sins we’ve committed and those temptations we’re bothered by and turning away from them. Does that mean we will automatically become kinder, or better, or more patient? What it means is that as we grow in our faith and show our faith, we will want to share our faith, too. And if my bitterness or my sarcasm or my impatience gets in the way of sharing my faith, then I need to dump those things right now and open up my life and open up my heart to the people around me.
So what about those times when you’ve decided to take a few giant steps backward in your faith? What about those times when you could have said something; could have shared the Gospel, but out of revenge, or out of anger, or out of fear or some other emotion bubbling up to the surface, you kept God’s forgiveness to yourself, and didn’t hold it out for somebody else?
That’s a sin that can eat away at you like rust on an old car. But that’s a sin that Jesus forgave, too. Through Jesus, the guilt of our sins is gone forever.
So now what? Now we remember our Savior’s love, and we show it with our lives. That’s what “being active in sharing your faith” is all about.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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