Apostasy from Jesus.
What candour there is in the Gospel narratives! Many went away from Jesus, and no concealment is made of the great apostasy. We are not to suppose that the whole company departed simultaneously, as if the heart of one man was in their breasts. Probably they went one or two at a time. Some would go openly, some under cover of darkness. We may be certain Jesus had his eye on each one as he departed, and he desired those still remaining to mark these who had gone. A critical time had come. Jesus could not be utterly silent about the apostates. He wanted some word to be spoken that would make a clear line between those who went and those who stayed. It was no astonishment to Jesus that some should go back and walk no more with him. He was even prepared to see many shrinking from his searching tests. But if all had gone, if he had been left in utter solitude, a Teacher with nobody to teach, a Messenger with none to welcome his message, he would have been astonished.
I. CONSIDER THOSE WHO WENT.
1. How came they to Jesus at all? This is best answered practically by considering how people now first of all come into connection with Jesus. Departure is ever going on of those who in some way, for some time, have been in connection with Jesus. What can be a more decided bringing of human beings to Jesus than all that is included in early training. Think of the thousands whom loving mothers bring to Jesus on the strength of his own strong words, "Suffer the little ones to come unto me." Coming is a thing of degrees, as departing is a thing of degrees. There must ever be movement in one direction or the other. We cannot, as Jesus did, single out particular individuals. There would be neither charity, humility, nor advantage in doing that. In truth, Jesus did not so much single out the apostates as they themselves did.
2. How came they to go? Their own plea would be found in the hard sayings of Jesus. They would profess a lack of the sensible and the practical in these sayings. That is just where the mistake generally comes in. We want all speeches and actions measured by our estimate of the possible and the desirable. If mysterious and difficult utterances are to shut out Jesus from the rule of human hearts, then he will never get the devotion of a single one. Those who went away professed to find the sayings difficult; that does not mean that those who stayed found them easy. The real reason for departure lay in this, that those departing had never faith of the right kind in Jesus himself. Many words of Jesus are really difficult—difficult of necessity and of purpose—but quite enough of his words are clear and plain to take away all ground for basing reasonable apostasy on them. No one can know better than Jesus himself how often his wisest, deepest words have been made the base and carnal excuse for unbelief.
II. CONSIDER WHOSE WHO SWAYED. Listen to their spokesman, Peter. Their spokesman, but not, therefore, the real, true representative of every one of them. Recollect Judas stayed, and for all we can see he might just as well have gone with the rest. Peter's answer, up to a certain point, was satisfactory. It cannot be supposed that he understood as yet the essence and the preciousness of eternal life. But he did feel that what Jesus laid such stress on must be something unspeakably good, and so he must stay with Jesus to make sure of getting it for his own. Go where you cannot get natural food, and natural death will soon come. Go where you are out of living and abiding contact with Christ, and whatever beginnings of eternal life be in you will soon perish. Yet there is a saddening element in the answer. One would have liked it better had there been some tender expression of sympathy with Jesus in this hour of so many desertions. The state of heart by which Peter was to look at things more from Jesus" point of view was to come after.—Y.
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