7 May 2022
Saturday of the Third Week of Easter
“Do you also want to leave?”
Many in the crowd cannot believe in Jesus; what He is saying is too absurd. They refuse to trust Him and cannot let go of their own effort to read into His strange words. “The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life,” He says, echoing His earlier statement: “…whoever believes has eternal life!” And yet, unwilling to believe, they forfeit eternal life and return “…to their former way of life.”
“Do you also want to leave?” He asks the Twelve. Indeed, He asks the Thirteen, for He asks you as well. “Do you also want to leave?” Do you wish to believe in Jesus, or your own understanding? Is Jesus the Way, or do you forge your own path? Do you work for food that perishes, or for food that endures for eternal life? For if we truly desire Heaven, if we desire eternal life, then we must love Jesus, we must believe in Him: we must say in our heart of hearts “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”