I asked what I thought was a logical question. I was on the phone making an appointment at a new doctor’s office. I asked them where they were located. “Where are you coming from?” the receptionist asked. Good question; to make it easy, I said, “I’ll be traveling north on 295. What exit should I take?” There was silence on the other end of the line. Apparently, my question was causing confusion. The receptionist said, “Well, we’re on Haddonfield Road.” “Great,” I said; “What’s the nearest major cross street?” … There was silence on the other end of the line. Apparently, my question was causing confusion. The receptionist couldn’t tell, but mentioned that their office was located across from a large apartment building. Great. They couldn’t tell me how to get there. They couldn’t tell me the way, but if I got there, I would recognize it.
I called a restaurant to see if they would take reservations, and, while I was at it, asked for directions. The person said, “Oh, we’re right by…” and then mentioned a store. Guess what the well known service store was…. “We’re right by Wawa.” Now, that pinpoints the location! I’ve come to the conclusion there are more Wawa stores than people in New Jersey. They couldn’t tell me how to get there. They couldn’t tell me the way, but if I got there, I would recognize it.
The only time I can completely relax finding a new place is for Presbytery meetings. A group of us from church pile into a car and go. We take back roads. I don’t know where we are, and I don’t know the way, but I trust the people who are directing me They are my way.
On the night of the Last Supper, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He says this because he has told his disciples he is going away to be with the Heavenly Father. Yes, Jesus is leaving, but, but, he is preparing for them to be with him and the Father forever. You know, the hardest good-bys to make are with those we will never see again. Jesus is cutting a distinction between good-bys. His good-by with his disciples will not be forever. It is a good-by for now. He says, in verse 3, “And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” Jesus will return and gather them and they will be together again, forever, in heaven. Jesus is leaving, but he is not abandoning them. To emphasize this key point, Jesus tells them in verse 4, “And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas misunderstands how Jesus uses the word, “way.” Thomas thinks Jesus is talking about a directional marker; follow the signs. However, when Jesus says he is the way, He is speaking in personal terms. He will not show them the way; Jesus IS the way.
“I am the way…” to the Father burned itself into the consciousness of the early disciples. They spoke of themselves at the first; probably not as “Christians,” but as followers of the Way. We get a hint of this early on in the history book of Acts; chapter 9:2. Persecution arises. One of the persecutors is Saul, who was re-named the apostle Paul. Before his conversation to Christ, Acts records that Saul asked for legal documents so that if he “found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” Followers of the Way they called themselves, because of the importance of Jesus’ words, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
I dare say that when anyone first hears, “I am the way to God,” it comes off sounding secretive, exclusive, as if the person has special knowledge that only a few realize. This is nothing new. Every philosophy or system claims to know a special way. For instance, the way of Islam demands that faithfulness to Allah consists of the 5 pillars of faith: a declaration of faith in Allah and Muhammad as his messenger, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and a pilgrimage to Mecca. That is their way. One must believe their 5-fold way to find their way to God. For many Americans, their way consists of trying to buy their way to happiness. For Christians, the way is not a system of belief, or action, or special knowledge open to only a few. Jesus is the way.
You see, we don’t examine new members to find out if they believe if Jesus will return before the tribulation, during the tribulation or after the tribulation, whether the tribulation is a period of 3 years or 7 years or if there is a tribulation before Jesus returns. We don’t ask people to sign a statement of belief. Nor do we check at the door to see if each person is giving generously, although it is natural for a Christian to have a generous spirit. No one asks if we’ve taken the booklet How to Read the Bible Meaningfully and use it to read the Bible although regular Bible reading and prayer is vital to a healthy spiritual life, as are other spiritual practices. Our way is Jesus, so the only thing we ask is if Jesus is Lord and Savior? This means that a person recognizes he or she needs to be saved by Jesus, and, places herself under God’s management. Jesus doesn’t show us the way. He is himself is the way. It’s like starting out on a hike, right into the forest with no path to follow, but, Jesus leads us. No matter where we go, it doesn’t matter, because we are following Jesus. Jesus is the way.
If Jesus declares that he is the way, this, of course, raises the question how we can know Jesus is the way to God. Jesus declares he is the way because he is the truth and the life; more specifically, he is the way to God because he reveals the truth of God to us and the life of God to us.
In John, 14: 8, 9, we find an interesting conversation. “Philip said to Jesus, ‘Lord, show us the Father and we shall be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long and yet you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’”
Jesus did not learn about God by studying books, or being a keen observer. Jesus knows the Father intimately because he has spent eternity with Him. In fact, Jesus is God. In his person, he reveals God the Father. Jesus is the way because he knows the truth about the Father, and he has come to reveal God to us. Look at what Jesus does.
He practices radical forgiveness for even those outcast by society, the robbers, the prostitutes, the immoral. He knows they do not rob and sell themselves for money because they want to, but because they are forced to. Jesus comes to a well in the middle of the day. There is a woman at the well, by herself, probably forced to come in the heat of the day, rather than in the cool of the morning like the other woman, who consider her immoral. Jesus speaks directly to her. Forget the words for a moment. The fact that he speaks to her reveals the radical forgiveness of God opened by Jesus.
Jesus reveals God active in the human world. He speaks wisely about how to live. He judges rightly. He heals sickness and sin. There is a power to his living that demonstrates God. And, Jesus shows us the sheer kindness of God to others, including those who seem to deserve it the least. Jesus is the way to God because he shows us truly what God is like. Without Jesus, what would we really know about God? It would be like trying to find a house in the dark. So many houses don’t have numbers that can be seen in the dark. Imagine if there were no numbers, no street signs. The power of Christmas is that God has come to our world to show us the truth about God.
Some, of course, are cynical about finding truth. In this post-modern world in which we live, the young adults and youth are tired of different sides each claiming to have the truth. They have seen how those in power manipulate what they call “truth” to sway opinions. The same evidence can be handled in opposite ways. They have a point. People pull truth their way and use if for their own purposes. Global warming? Some take the evidence to demand we must cut our carbon emissions dramatically. They point to truth. Others poke holes in their evidence to argue the so called truth really isn’t and young adults and youth see opposite sides claiming opposite truths. Like Pilate, the Roman governor before whom Jesus stood, who said to Jesus, “What is truth?” we can wonder if anyone really has truth anymore.
However, there is some truth! If we lean far enough forward, we will fall. Let’s try it… let’s not! We know there are some truths. When Jesus says, I am the way because I am the truth, he is declaring that he reveals to us the truth about God. No one else can lay claim to revealing God, except God, and Jesus is God. This is what Jesus means when he says, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus shows us the truth about God because he knows God intimately as only he can. He shows us the truth about God. He also shows us the truth about ourselves.
What is the truth about us humans? That there is a deep disconnect in our lives, like two wires that we just can’t quite seem to plug together. We humans can’t seem to connect our lives to a wider purpose.
Matthew Arnold (Rugby Chapel; in The Interpreter’s Bible) writes:
Most (people) eddy about
Here and there – eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurl’d in the dust.
Striving, blindly, achieving
Nothing; and then they die-
Perish – and no one asks
Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves
In the moonlit solitudes mild
Of the midmost Ocean, have swell’d,
Foam’d for a moment, and gone.
Do you recall, maybe sitting outside, late at night, thinking? Pondering and wondering what life is all about. Asking out loud, “What is my place in this world? What is the meaning of our lives?” These are questions about finding our life’s way. We test out many different ways. While we are in school, we think that landing a good job is the way. But, money proves to be a false way. We think it’s finding the right person, or having 2.3 children, or buying enough things. All these we test out, thinking they are the true way, and all fall short.
Jesus understands the truth about human beings. He recognizes the disconnect between our search for true life and all the things we try to plug in, that just don’t work – or short-circuit. That is because we were made differently. We don’t run on things, not deeply. We run on a connection that is plugged in to our Heavenly Father through Jesus. Jesus knows that truth about us. He came to reveal the truth about ourselves and to plug us in a different way, the way of truth, the way of the Father.
We come to a point when we state the truth; just like on the TV show, when the adult faces the camera at the end of the show and admits, “I’m not smarter than a fifth grader.” So we admit that we fall short of God’s best for us because we are living for ourselves. Next, after stating this truth, we stake our life on Jesus. We offer our living and our lives to Jesus. We place the direction and purpose of our lives into his hands. Then, third, we seek the Holy Spirit’s leading. We state the truth, we stake our lives on Jesus and we seek the Spirit, which is the point of Jesus’ Last Supper teaching. “I will send you another Counselor to be with you.” The point of the Counselor, that is the Spirit, is not to make us feel warm and cuddly only, but to reveal Jesus’ will for us, to guide us in what is truth, to bring to our mind the things Jesus said and did so our lives might wrap around them, and to be empowered to live for Jesus.