To believe.
To believe.
T oday is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the little baby in a manger in Bethlehem. It might be easier now, with the remove of 2,000 years, to wonder who this baby really was, but people have always had a hard time with that question.
We have a few accounts of people in the Bible who got it right away. Mary’s faith in God’s promise to her is the first example. Joseph obeyed the angel who spoke to him in a vision and told him exactly who the baby in Mary’s womb was. Simeon’s joy at the prophecy being fulfilled in his lifetime, just as God promised, is contagious.
But most people in the Bible did not encounter Jesus and shout to God, “For my eyes have seen your salvation.” Many of them asked some version of, “Who are you?” or “What are you doing?”
It’s comforting to know that was their reaction, too. It’s the reaction of most people today. And it’s not a crazy reaction to have.
The Bible says that light has come into the world, but the world is dark, and the darkness doesn’t comprehend the light. Jesus doesn’t come to tell us everything’s great. Mark records the first words of His ministry to include, “Repent and believe the good news!” Repent and believe — that’s a demand for change.
Change is hard, and most people don’t want to do it. They’re big fans of Jesus’s miracles though. The Gospels say a crowd begins to develop around Him to see what He’ll do next.
John chapter 6 begins with the feeding of the 5,000. A massive crowd sees Jesus say a quick prayer over a boy’s lunch and use it to feed all of them, with a lot left over. John 6:14 says, “After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’”
They got it! But they didn’t really. The next verse says, “Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.” They had an idea of who they wanted Jesus to be, but they didn’t know who He is.
This becomes evident the very next day, when the crowd confronts Jesus and asks, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus replies, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Sounds like great food, and this Son of Man character sounds important. The people want some clarification: “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
Notice that Jesus responds to their question about “works” with an answer about one “work.” He doesn’t need servants to do things for Him. They wanted to make Him the king, but they don’t realize that He is already the king of kings. It’s the same message He said at the start of Mark, and it’s the same message He said to Thomas after His resurrection: believe.
Frequently throughout the Bible, God’s actions can often be summarized as different ways of demonstrating that He exists. “I am” is the name He claims for Himself in Exodus chapter 3 when Moses asks who he should say has sent him. It’s the simplest possible statement of being. What’s the one thing God wanted the Israelites to know about Him? That He is.
Exodus proceeds in this manner. By my count, God says 61 times in that book that He is God. It becomes so repetitive that your brain can be tempted to skip over it to focus on the narrative of the plagues and the escape from Egypt. But God is constantly saying “I am the Lord,” “I am the Lord your God,” and other things that make clear His sovereignty over heaven and earth.
God explains to Moses why He’s doing what He’s doing in Exodus 10:1–2: “I have hardened [Pharaoh’s] heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.” The purpose is to demonstrate that God is God.
In Deuteronomy, Moses frames the law for the people in exactly those terms. He is constantly asking them to remember what God did, and how He showed that He is God during the Exodus. Of course, we know that many of them still didn’t believe.
This is a good reminder to anyone who thinks, “If only I saw a sign from God, then I’d believe.” These people saw ten plagues, the Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, manna from heaven — and they still made idols for themselves and didn’t believe in God.
Stupid? No. Relatable.
As Jesus said in John 16:31, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Or even if someone feeds thousands with one boy’s lunch, as John 6 tells us.
After Jesus’s brief answer telling the people to believe in Him, they asked, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?” He had just fed the 5,000 the day before. Plenty of people in the crowd probably still had leftovers.
They didn’t need more evidence. They needed to believe. But there’s a cost to believing in God, and it is submission to His will. A necessary consequence of believing in one true God is the belief that you are not Him.
Jesus explained to them that He was there to do His Father’s will. John 6:40 says, “My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
If God is God, there’s no reason He has to demonstrate it to us. He could just hang out in heaven, manipulate the weather, inflict misery on the New York Jets, and do whatever else He wants because He’s in charge of everything, always and forever. But He has chosen, in his infinite grace and mercy, to reveal Himself to us, over and over and over, and send His only begotten Son as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem to give us eternal life.
And the only thing He wants from us in return is to believe in Him. What wondrous love is this, O my soul.