So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
John 6:67-68
In the verses that precede these lines, Jesus has been preaching to his disciples and to the crowds that have come to hear him. Some in the crowd do not understand what Jesus is saying, and they turn their backs and “walked no more with him.” Jesus asks the disciples who remain, “Will you leave me also?” But Peter, the Rock upon whom Jesus will build his church, the apostle to whom He will hand the Keys to the Kingdom, understands directly, immediately, and answers with great simplicity: “Lord to whom can we go?” Peter knows that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).
This is the same Peter who will walk upon the waves to Jesus -- but, when his fears overwhelm him, he loses his faith and begins to sink into the stormy sea. It is Peter who will deny Jesus three times during Jesus’ last hours on earth. Peter is far from perfect; he is like us: he has moments when he ceases to believe and there are times when he abandons Jesus. But in these verses he sees to the heart of the matter, and so we can, like him, do the same: we can answer Jesus when he asks us, “Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Diana Doswell
