MORE THAN JUST BELIEVING

Saturday in the 3rd Week of Easter
Jn 6:60-69

Faith is more than just believing. To believe means to accept a claim. To have faith means to surrender one’s self to a claim. We cannot have faith without first believing. But there are occasions when we believe and yet have no faith.

For belief in Jesus to become faith in Him, we must allow our accepting of Jesus reach the level of submitting our whole selves to Him. Some people welcome Jesus into their lives but do not trust Him enough to entrust their lives to Him.

Believing without faith is possible just as faith without believing is not totally impossible. The Gospel today illustrates this. Some Jews abandoned Jesus because they could not stomach His claim that unless they eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, they would have no life in them. They left Jesus not because they thought Jesus was an ill-meaning teacher or a mere lunatic. They left Jesus because their belief was challenged to take the next higher level of faith in Jesus. Their acceptance of Jesus was called upon to the new definition of surrendering themselves to Him.

Believing means we are still in control because we choose what to believe in or what not to believe in. Faith demands that we resign all of our faculties to Him in whom we believe. If we find our selves choosing only what we want as far as Jesus and His teachings are concerned, then we still have no faith.