A few words about looking for Jesus - John 6: 24-35
The first verses of today's pericopes are marked by the idea of searching. The crowd following Jesus is looking for Jesus and his disciples both on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and in Capernaum (Jn. 6:24). Jesus' answer in John 6:24 also relates to the motive of the search.
Behind this "search" is the Greek verb dzeteo - one of the beloved terms of St. John the Evangelist. It appears 35 times in the fourth Gospel, beginning with John 1:48 in Jesus' question to the two disciples of John the Baptist "what are you looking for?" and it ends with the similar phrase from John 20:15, "who are you looking for?" that Jesus addresses to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection.
Let us note how fantastically St. John builds the meaning of the verb. It begins with objectivity, through the pronoun that asks "what", and ends with a subjective "whom" of a personal nature. In this way, he builds a strategy regarding the search for Jesus. It begins with asking questions about external matters related to the person of Jesus, and its culmination should be a personal encounter with the risen Christ. The path of looking for Jesus leads through discovering the miracles and signs performed by Him and described in the Gospels, up to a personal adherence, where an authentic and practical answer is made to the question about the life search for Jesus Christ.
The crowd seeking Jesus in John 6:24 is still focused on the external dimension of Jesus' encounter. They are fascinated by the miracles performed by the Savior, and especially by the miracle of the multiplication of the bread. This is not strange in itself. Today, too, there would probably be zealous followers of that crowd. After all, life without material care for tomorrow is almost heavenly life.
Moreover, hunger was unfortunately an integral part of the livelihoods of many people on Palestinian soil two thousand years ago. The crowd cannot therefore be overly condemned. They just have a purely human view of Jesus' abilities to meet their basic life needs. As we know from the rest of the pericope, Christ makes us realize that, unfortunately, he did not come to earth to solve even the most pressing economic or social issues, such as the problem of hunger. His mission was on a completely different plane.
When the word "crowd" (Greek: ochlos) appears in the Gospel according to St. John, it is worth paying attention to one interesting fact. Well, John's crowd is often an active interlocutor of Jesus not only in material but also theological matters! "Crowd" at St. John the Evangelist conducts many lively disputes with Jesus (cf. Jn. 12:34).
The "crowd" is a reality that is not a chaotic jumble, but an expression and representative of a certain stratum of the community at that time. Hence, it is not surprising that the Evangelist attributes characteristics to this ochlos (crowd) that belong rather to one person! Could the crowd as a collective actually be an interlocutor to Jesus? Yet the Savior never disregarded the crowd! And rightly so. The crowd praises and the crowd murders.
Can you meet Jesus while walking in the crowd? Unfortunately, an authentic encounter with the Risen One takes place in the community of the Church, but ultimately requires a personal (!) commitment. In search of Jesus, everyone must find their own, unique way of following Jesus within the Community. There are no two identical ways to search for Jesus! Ultimately, my path is known only to God and me. Even those with whom we have particularly close ties cannot replace our personal search effort.
This Gospel shows the truth that following Jesus is not easy at all. We often miss Him in our thinking. But most of all, I see his patient love in this Gospel. Jesus knows that he has people in front of him, only people. I do not hear in his voice a grudge against people that they think humanly. I hear Jesus showing the truth: look, this is what you really care about. You are not really looking for the Kingdom of God. But despite this, he invites them to believe, tries to awaken it in them.
He preaches the Good News to them that he loves them and wants to make their lives truly happy. Even if after a while it turns out again that they are still thinking in their categories, He continues to show them the perspective of faith.
This is the dialogue that God tries to have with each of us constantly. Sometimes this dialogue is more like an internal struggle. We follow Him with our human thinking, with human needs. We want to eat well, dress properly, have a good job, earn decent money, settle down in life.
We pray, but we don't really let that prayer change us. We listen to the Gospel, and in our heads we have our solutions, our schemes, our thinking, etc. We are interested in what we consider to be good for us. This is what we expect from him. We choose from what He says what suits us. This is where our unbelief manifests itself. The disbelief that many of us have, people who declare themselves to be believers, pious people. He knows it, and yet he does not give up on proclaiming the Gospel to us. He will continue to struggle with our unbelief, he will bear it. Because he really loves us.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george