Many of Jesus disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that 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 drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 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 one of you is a devil?” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.
As we can see, Jesus was not willing to compromise on the truth of His message in order to get everyone to follow Him. Even knowing the murmurings of those who followed Him, Jesus could not and would not water down His message, for that would have meant betraying the mission the Father had entrusted to Him, and thus betraying Himself.
He goes on to instruct the disciples, ‘Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?’
The Lord tries again and again to make it clear that He acts as both God and man, and that His whole coming is to be understood as a revelation of the Eternal Father through Himself. God is Spirit, and therefore we must understand Him also in the Spirit which our Father pours out upon us in abundance. When one responds to the invitation of the Spirit, one’s eyes are opened and one begins to see. The human understanding is not able to grasp divine things by itself. It needs the light of the Holy Spirit to see with the eyes of faith.
This is clear from today’s passage: some of the disciples who had gathered around Jesus found His language too harsh and decided to stop following Him. Their faith had not taken as deep root as Peter’s.
Jesus did not hold back those who wanted to leave. He then turned to the Twelve whom He had chosen: ‘Do you also wish to go away?’, to which Simon Peter gave that answer which to this day touches the heart of every believer and moves him to say with 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.”
Here we encounter true faith. Once we have known the Lord, there is no other way but Him. If the Holy Spirit has conferred this conviction upon us and we hold fast to it, then the decisive thing has happened in our life and we can only implore the Lord to never let us turn away from Him.
This faith then moves us to accept, preserve and bear witness to all the truths handed down to us by the Word of God and the authentic Magisterium of the Church. Unfortunately, we cannot rule out the possibility that some of these doctrines may seem ‘too hard’ for the people of today and may be contrary to the ‘spirit of the times’. Is it possible, then, to soften them so that as many people as possible embrace the faith? Is it possible, for example, to give up the conviction that Jesus is the only way to the Father, considering that today the tendency is to say that all religions lead to God, as we have heard even from the highest positions in the Church?
No! One cannot betray the truth that has been revealed to us. Here we must learn from the example of Jesus: even if it happens that certain people turn away from us because we stand firmly for the truth that God has entrusted to us, we cannot compromise or relativise it. We must be willing to pay that price.
It must have been extremely painful for our Lord to know that one of the Twelve was a ‘devil’. Although he had lived with Jesus for three years, seen His miracles and heard His words, he became the betrayer. The devil was able to exert his influence on him to the point that he betrayed Jesus. We know the tragic end of Judas (Mt 27:3-5).
The case of this disciple should serve as a warning to us never to let our faith waver and to be more anchored in Jesus. We can implore the Lord never to allow us to stray from Him and always to stand between us when we are in danger of straying.
Let us cling to Peter’s wonderful confession, which can serve as a beacon in all the times of darkness and confusion we have to go through, a beacon that does not lose its light even when attempts are made to obscure the profession of faith: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”