A few years ago, I was questioning again whether I still believed in God. To give God a fair chance, I decided to study what the Bible says about who God is. I needed to know if I had lost belief in my understanding of God, or if I had stopped believing in the God of the Bible. Most of what I read was familiar. But a surprising relief came when I realized that the Bible has always described God as incomprehensible. I want a God I can understand, but God has never accommodated that request.
John 6:16-21
When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. Darkness had already set in, but Jesus had not yet come to them. A high wind arose, and the sea began to churn. After they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea. He was coming near the boat, and they were afraid. But he said to them, "It is I. Don't be afraid." Then they were willing to take him on board, and at once the boat was at the shore where they were heading.
In the previous passage, we saw that just as Moses fed the Israelites in the desert with manna, so Jesus miraculously provided bread to the crowd. The crowd reasoned, if Jesus is doing the kinds of things Moses did, who delivered our ancestors out of Egypt, then Jesus must be a Messiah who will lead them to victory over Rome. They felt sure they knew who he was and why he was there. Now, after Jesus withdraws from the crowd, he comes to his disciples to reveal how little they understand. Not only is he much greater than Moses, he is also the embodied revelation of God. John stacks the parallels throughout his Gospel. Moses asked God for bread, but Jesus personally multiplied it. Moses parted the water, but Jesus walks on it. Moses sacrificed lambs, but Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb. When Jesus says, "It is I. Don't be afraid," he is repeating the name of YHWH: I am who I am. When he suddenly appears to the disciples in the midst of their darkness, it is a foreshadowing of his resurrection. This scene is an unsettling mystery. Jesus speaks and acts like God in terrifying ways that no one really understands. How does the boat instantly arrive at the shore? None of the disciples could make sense of it, but they vividly remembered it. We want a God we can explain and control. But Jesus is incomprehensibly great, and so we worship him.
The disciples became more afraid after Jesus showed up. Have you ever felt unsettled by encountering God?
What's one thing about God that you wish you could understand?
What would we lose if we could fully understand Jesus?
Sometime today, reach out to a friend and ask, "What surprises you about God?"
Get a daily, five-minute Bible study to discuss with a friend.
121 friends have opened a study shared with them.
The story about Jesus flipping tables is awkward. It's used both to rationalize posting rage bait online and t...
I remember staring at my phone, willing myself to pick it up, but my arm felt like lead. I needed to raise sup...
I once got incredibly angry at one of my roommates because he wrote a blog with what I considered bad theology...