There is a story in the gospel of John where Jesus said some things that thoroughly confused and disturbed his disciples. Many disciples left Jesus because they just could not understand what he was saying, those that remained said in their exasperation, “where else would we go? you have the words of life”. Let’s pick this story up just after many followers gave up and left.

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

I want to explore this idea of how we respond when we don’t understand. Do we walk away making matters worse, or do we continue to follow in faith because there is no life to be found in wondering alone in the dark. When described in these terms the answer seems obvious. But when we are experiencing these times of confusion or doubt it feels like there is nothing obvious about anything.

First of all it is easy to dismiss the confusion the disciples were feeling as trivial, but it was nothing of the sort. The bulk of those following Jesus had just walked away because he told them that they would have to eat his body. Eating the body of your Rabbi is not now, nor has it ever been a part of the Jewish faith. For many of the disciples of Jesus this was just too much. Saying things that are a bit hard to grasp was to be expected, but talking about some kind of weird cannibalism was a bridge too far. This is not the only time Jesus was considered crazy by his followers and even his family. Earlier in his ministry when things began to get crazy and crowds were gathering and people were being healed Mark reports this event:

Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”  (Mark 3:20-21 ESV)

How are we going to respond?

We live in a world whose knee jerk reaction to faith in God seems to be that faith is crazy, almost by definition of the word. They define faith as believing without evidence, or describe it as a blind leap. But is it true that faith is believing without evidence? After all when John describes his motive for writing his Gospel he describes it like this:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.  

John was not asking his readers to believe without evidence, he was giving them evidence so that they may believe. As for blind faith how many things does every human on earth believe that can’t be empirically proven as fact. If we only moved when all the facts were undeniably proven we would never move. So whether one believes in Jesus or not we all have to face the dilemma that the apostles faced in this story. What do we do when we are not sure what to think?

Leaning into what you do know

When faced with something that just can’t be understood with the knowledge we have we have two broad options. Give up - or lean into what you already know for sure and use that as a platform as you reach for more understanding.

The apostles were not denying reality nor were they taking a blind leap of faith. They knew Jesus and they knew that he had the words of life, whether they understood those words fully or not - they did know him. They were willing for forego judgment on the things they did not understand because what they did understand was compelling enough to carry them through the things they didn’t understand.

Today everywhere you look there are those asking you to believe things that are by no means facts. In fact there are many that don’t believe there are hard facts at all, only perceptions of individuals. At the same time there are many voices today trying to get you to forget what you know in your heart to be true. They attempt to lead you away from the truth of Jesus, by confusing you with things you do not understand. Today we need to cling to what (or rather, who) we know for sure and refuse to deny those things simply because there are things we don’t understand.

There will always be things we don’t understand, there is nothing amazing about that. What is amazing is Jesus. He not only has the words of life, but through his death and resurrection he has become life to all who believe - as long as we never quit. This is the foundation we work from as we grapple with the things we legitimately do not understand.

Have a great day!