Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 95 · April 5
To Whom Shall We Go
“Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”
It is the day after Jesus fed the crowd, and He is teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
The day before, people had eaten from five barley loaves, and now they had come looking for more. What Jesus gave them instead was His teaching about Himself as the bread of life, and many who heard it began to grumble. "Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?" John tells us plainly what happened next: "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." These were people who had been following Him, and they stopped.
Jesus watches them go, and He does not chase after them. Then He turns to the twelve and asks a question few leaders would dare to ask on a day like that: "Will ye also go away?"
Peter answers with a question of his own: "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." He does not claim that the hard saying became easy while the others were leaving. He has weighed where else he could go, and he has found nothing out there worth walking toward. Then he makes a real confession, "we believe and are sure," and he names Jesus as the Holy One of God, as the oldest copies read the line.
Two things are true in that room at once. Sometimes staying is what faith looks like on a day when the excitement has worn off, and Peter is right to stay. Yet the very next verse warns us against resting on the simple fact that we stayed: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" Judas was standing in the room when Peter spoke. So the place to be is beside Peter, saying those words for yourself and meaning them. Jesus still has the words of eternal life, and anyone who stays near Him will keep hearing them.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 95 is Delivered from Fear (Psalm 34:4).