Tom Hawkes
“After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So, Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’” John 6:66-68
After many disciples left Jesus, following a hard teaching he had given, Jesus asked the disciples what they will do. “Do you want to go away as well?” Peter said to Jesus, in effect: You are the only game in town, where else can we go? “You have the words of eternal life.”
In the movie Knight and Day, Tom Cruise plays an apparently rogue secret agent who accidentally gets caught up with Cameron Diaz’s innocent-bystander character. She wants to leave him and demands that he pull the car over so she can get out. He pulls over the car, they both get out and he explains to her: “Your life expectancy without me is here” (holding his hand down low). “With me it is here” (holding it high). He repeats this several times, moving his hand up and down: “With me, without me.” She decides her life is better with him. It turns out to be a wise decision.
The scene with Peter and the disciples is somewhat similar. Jesus is asking them the central question of Christian discipleship: “Will you follow me, or leave me?” But rather than Jesus answering the question, Peter does. With you, our expectation of abundant life is up here. Without you it is down here. “With you, without you, with you, without you.”
As difficult as it may be at points to follow Jesus, Peter realized with absolute clarity that all the other alternatives were far worse. If we leave Jesus, abandoning faith in him, what is there left to us? Really, all the other ways are ways to death. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Prov. 16:25). With him, there is life, sure life, life to the full, eternal life. Without him there is only death, despair, hopelessness, eternal darkness. It seems risky at points trusting in Jesus. But with him, is always the safest place to be. Without him is always the most dangerous.
It can be helpful at times to ask this essential, gut-check kind of question. Especially when following Jesus is painful and costly. Where else will I go? Really, what is a better way to live than as Jesus’ disciple? Where else will I find truth? Where else is life? Where else is purpose? Where else the steadfast love of the God of the universe?
It is a good question to ask. And it is good to allow the answer to dawn upon you, to become obvious, as it did for Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Dr. Tom Hawkes, a native of nearby Atlantic Beach and a graduate from Episcopal High, is the founding pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church, a new mission church on the island. It is a congregation of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, an historic and biblically conservative denomination, founded in 1782 and headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina. He also serves as Director of Church Planting for the Florida Presbytery. He and his wife, Ann, are delighted to call Amelia Island home. Contact him at tom@christpresfb.com, or visit www.christpresfb.com