Untitled Sermon (15)

The Way, The Truth, The Life

Jesus’ words offer His followers a way forward, a certainty for the journey, and a destination.

A Path to Follow

Not many months before Jesus’ last evening with His disciples He had made it clear to a much larger group that there were changes ahead.

John 8:21–22 HCSB

Then He said to them again, “I’m going away; you will look for Me, and you will die in your sin. Where I’m going, you cannot come.” So the Jews said again, “He won’t kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I’m going, you cannot come’ ?”

Now, with those men that He had selected to be with Him He reminds them:

John 13:33 HCSB

“Children, I am with you a little while longer. You will look for Me, and just as I told the Jews, ‘Where I am going you cannot come,’ so now I tell you.

Peter’s response is not surprising:

John 13:37 HCSB

“Lord,” Peter asked, “why can’t I follow You now? I will lay down my life for You!”

Leaving aside Jesus’ reply, let’s look at the answer He gives to those with Him on that evening.

READ John14:1-6

As we know the events unfolding that night were of eternal consequence.

What was about to happen though unprecedented in their lives was no surprise to God.

Just as at various times in their past, God had revealed the way, the path.

Moses leading the people to a land no one had ever experienced.

Nehemiah taking a contingent of fellow Jews to a homeland they had only heard about from the ancestors.

And now Jesus promises a path, a way, through the challenging events that were unfolding.

The path forward is not simply a map or a list of specific directions.

The path, the way forward is Jesus Himself.

He is the way

In the often repeated Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,

Matthew 7:13–14 HCSB

“Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.

Jesus uses the same Greek word in both places. One writer offers this explanation of Jesus’ words in Matthew:

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume ὁδός

What we have is a summons to discipleship. Jesus’ demands are severe. Hence the gate is narrow and the way is hard. But there is no other way to life. If there are few on this way, it is not because it is too small, but because people like an easier path

As Jesus is preparing His closest followers for events that will change their world, He is assuring them:

I AM THE WAY.

A Certainty for the Journey

Mahatma Gandhi, for example, once said, “The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.”3 Gandhi is not alone. At worst, the voices around us tell us religion is the problem. Here’s how Sam Harris put it: Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at any time in the past.… Why is religion such a potent source of violence? There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us–them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If you really believe that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly.4 More crudely, Howard Stern mashed the pieces together: “I’m sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don’t think there’s any difference between the Pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock.”5

Pickavance, Timothy. Knowledge for the Love of God: Why Your Heart Needs Your Mind (pp. 20-21). Eerdmans. Kindle Edition.

So, when Jesus tells us He is THE way and that HE is the truth we have a choice.

Will we conform our lives to what is true or will we - as the above individuals express, seek to bend reality to our truth?

Life is not a place but a relationship…

Jesus’ claim to be ‘the life’ is not just about a destination.

Yes, He assured His first followers

John 14:2–3 HCSB

In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also.

Just a few weeks or even days prior to this dinner with His closest followers, Jesus had assured Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, that He was

John 11:25 HCSB

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.

Jesus’ claim to be ‘the life’ is one that John the gospel writer has been focusing on since the beginning of his ‘gospel.’

John 1:4 HCSB

Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men.

Jesus is inviting His followers to be where He is, to be where the Father is.

He issues this invitation because life, as properly defined and understood, is found in God and God alone.

Listen to His own explanation earlier in His travels:

John 5:24 HCSB

“I assure you: Anyone who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.

REFLECT AND RESPOND