During this season before Easter, which we call Lent, we have been looking at who the real Jesus is. Not who other people THINK Jesus is, but what Jesus actually said about himself according to an eye witness, his disciple John. Specifically, these are Jesus’ seven “I am” statements. Through each “I Am” statement Jesus revealed a little more about who he really was, what his purpose was on earth, and how we are supposed to respond to him.
I am the Way
Of all the “I am” statements Jesus made, this mornings statement is probably the most controversial in our society today. Jesus claimed, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” The reason this statement is so controversial is because there is very little wiggle room, it is very exclusive. According to Jesus he is the only way to the Father.
In our society there is an increasing opposition (even among Christians) to what appears to them to be intolerant and exclusive claims. It has provoked people to respond, “Christians are arrogant to think Jesus is the only way, that somehow they have a corner of the market on God.” Perhaps you you’ve heard, “Don’t all religions basically teach the same thing anyway if you boil them all down?” Be good, love others, live peacefully, and resist evil. It shouldn’t matter if you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever because if you pulled out all of the basic teachings of these religions you would end up with the same basic ingredients. It’s like a lot of Italian dishes, they are all prepared differently, lasagna, spaghetti, ravioli, manicotti, pizza; but are basically composed of the same ingredients. Therefore “aren’t these religions just taking different roads going up the same mountain to God, so that the important thing is to be faithful in your practice?”
I was reading an article called “Faith for the Future” written by a United Methodist pastor in a magazine called the Futurist (Sept./Oct. 2005). The essential point of his article was that if Christianity was going to survive in the future it must evolve to remove these exclusive claims which divide people. Instead we must create a faith which is more inclusive of other views and particularly embraces science. Otherwise Christianity will become an extinct dinosaur totally out of touch with today’s culture.
Needless to say I was shocked and very upset that one of my fellow colleagues in ministry who has read the scriptures was so willing to quickly abandon any exclusive claims about our faith because the church would not supposedly survive in our ever changing society. The problem with this perspective is that it completely ignores Jesus’ teachings, Paul’s teachings, and basically the whole NT.
Jesus didn’t just teach people how to live good moral lives. Jesus came to teach us how we could be in a relationship with God, his Father, just as he was in relationship with the Father, and how God would work in our lives, giving us the power to change our lives. This relationship cannot be restored by following a particular teaching, this relationship can only be restored in one way, through another person, through Jesus, God’s Son. The way to God is not accomplished through Jesus’ teachings or anyone else’s teachings whether it is Mohammed or Buddha or David Corresh. It is not by obeying certain commands, praying five times a day facing a certain direction, or reciting some mantra.
Jesus was not just another road sign among many pointing us in the right direction to God, he isn’t just a compass or GPS to direct our path, Jesus is the path connecting us to God. Jesus said he would go to prepare a place for us in his Father’s house so that we might be with the Father, and one day he will return to bring us to be with God. We do not find the way to the Father, to heaven, by just following particular teachings, but by following a person, Jesus, by trusting in faith that he is in God the Father, and the Father is in him, and that Jesus died and resurrected for us, so that he might come live in us, and we in him.
Imagine being in a building which was on fire, and there was smoke all around and a fireman comes in and yells, “the building is on fire, all of the exits are blocked by the flames, you need to follow me, I know the way the out,” and some of the people in the room respond, “How do I know the building is really on fire? Perhaps you have created all of this smoke just to get us to abandon our comfortable place to follow you.” While the rest say, “I believe there is a fire but I think I would rather take my own way out of the building,” not trusting the word of warning from the fireman that all of the exits have been blocked by destruction caused by the fire.
This may seem like a ridiculous scenario to us, but this happens all of the time. Our fireman, Jesus, has tried to warn us that there are consequences to our sin, eternal ones, the result of which is Hell, eternal punishment, whatever we want to refer to it as, but people don’t believe it. They think, we Christians (and Jesus) are just sending up a smoke screen of exaggeration to convince them to leave their comfortable lifestyle with no real reason. Either they like to believe there is no afterlife, or no hell, or that God is so loving he is going to overlook the sin in our life so that when we die we can be with him. Our warning is just one big guilt trip to convince people to join our particular brand of religion (I love the sign I read on the marquee of the Unitarian Church in Lexington, KY, ‘we don’t do guilt’). Others may agree that they need to get out of the building before it burns down, in other words that the threat of heaven and hell are real, eternal punishment is real, but they want to choose another route to safety because all of the exit signs will supposedly lead to the same place, even though Jesus said the other exits won’t lead to safety but to more danger. The exits people may choose to take could include another religion, or it may be in believing that the good we have done will outweigh the bad stuff.
The truth of the matter is that a relationship with God is only possible through the forgiveness we receive through God’s Son. Jesus is the way to the Father because he is in the Father and the Father is in him. Jesus even said to Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (14:9).” No one, not even in any major religion, has ever made this claim and been able to substantiate it through miracles and by raising from the dead. Jesus is the only one who is able to go prepare a place for us with the Father because he is God, and the only person who has every lived a truly righteous or sinless life (Heb. 4:15). If you’re on a trip somewhere and you’ve never been there before and you don’t have a map. Wouldn’t you want someone who has been there guiding you?
This verse was not intended to divide people, but Jesus shared this with his disciples to comfort them. Jesus had just revealed that after three years of being with the disciples he was about to enter his glory and leave them, and that Peter would deny him. His words were meant to encourage them as people who already believed in him and were following him, that in his absence he was going to prepare a place for them with God, “in my Father’s house are many rooms, and I am preparing a place for you. When everything is prepared I will come back for you.” These are words of encouragement, not antagonism to those who do not believe. They are words of love from Jesus to his disciples so that they might have joy that they would be with Jesus forever.
I am the Truth
Unfortunately, many people in today’s society are skeptical about the truth of Jesus’ claims. They choose not to believe. It isn’t for a lack of interest in spiritual things, the United States at least has exploded with interest in spiritual practice in the last decade, unfortunately not many of these people are turning to Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. Why? Because people are responding to Jesus’ claim, the same way Pilate did when Jesus revealed he was the King, and he had come to testify to the truth, and that anyone who really loves the truth will recognize the truth in Jesus’ words. Pilate’s response was, “What is truth?” A lot of people today are like Pilate, they ignore Jesus’ words because they do not by believe there is an absolute truth.
We no longer live in a society that believes in absolute truth. If you have been born and raised in the church you may not have even realized this. It used to be that if Jesus said it, we believed it was true, and if it is true it is always true for every person. If Jesus is the way to God, it is true for every person at every time and place. Unfortunately that is no longer the case in our society. Truth has become relative to the person. Now days if you told someone that Jesus has died for me, you might hear a comment like this (particularly from young people today), “that may be true for you, but it isn’t true for me.” In many of our mind’s it is either true absolutely, all the time, or not at all. Either Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, all the time for every person or he isn’t.
Where did this view come from? We can thank Einstein’s Theory of Relativity for that. The Theory of Relativity changed how people perceive the world, how they perceive the truth. I’m going to give you a little physics lesson this morning. This theory basically states that things are relative to your location. For example if a train is traveling at 30 mph north and you are standing next to the railroad tracks as the train goes by. Now imagine at the same time you are on your cell phone with a friend who is on another train on a set of tracks right next to the first train, only their train is going south at 30 mph and they pass you by at the very same moment they pass the other train. As you talk to them you begin arguing about how fast the train appeared to be going. You begin to argue that the train appeared to be traveling at 30 mph, but your friend argues instead that from his perspective the train was going 60 mph. Who is right? You both are, because from your friend’s perspective the two speeds of the trains moving in opposite directions add together, 30+30 is 60 mph. How fast the train appears to be going depends upon your perspective at the time you observe it. That theory has actually changed the way our world sees reality and truth because now reality and truth are based on my perspective, so someone can say, that what may be true from your perspective, but I see it differently from my perspective.
Twenty-six times in John’s gospel Jesus says, “I tell you the truth.” And most of those occasions Jesus told people about himself, about his relationship with God, or how we need Jesus for a relationship with God.
Since Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him, Jesus must speak the truth (14:10-11). He says in v. 11, “the words I say to you are not my own. Rather it is the Father living in me.” It is the divine presence of God in Jesus that allowed him to do the miracles he did, and tell Jesus to say the things he said. The words Jesus spoke us are the truth because he is in the Father, and the Father is in him.
Going back to the train illustration, no matter what our perspective is on the speed of the train, the truth is the train is still going 30 mph north. While our perspectives might be different from others, the truth remains the same, Jesus is the way and the truth for all people, for all time. The words Jesus spoke were the truth because they came directly from God the Father. They came from God’s perspective, not human perception.
The question for us remains, are we going to believe Jesus’ words are the truth even if they are difficult for us to accept, and are we going to choose to follow him exclusively, believing as his disciples did that Jesus has the words of eternal life, and that he is the Holy One of God (John 6:68-69).
I am the Life
Without believing Jesus is the way and the truth, we cannot experience life. Jesus said, “I am the life.” The very first words of John’s gospel teach us that Jesus was the co-Creator of life with his Father:
NIV John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
Jesus was the author of life with his Father at the beginning of time. He helped breath life into the very first inhabitants of our planet. However Jesus told us that in order to experience eternal life with God in heaven and an abundant life right now on this earth we must trust in him.
Conclusion:
If Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life,” as he said he was, then there are two responses we must make.
#1 We all have to decide if we are going to trust Jesus as our path to the Father, both now and eternally. If you have not made that choice you need to take a step of faith and believe in him. Believe that by trusting in him he will bring you into relationship with God, and you will find amazing abundant life as a result of being in Christ.
#2 If Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life,” we have a responsibility to help others to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ
Sharing Jesus with others
We live in a new day. You can no longer tell people Jesus said “whoever believes in me will have everlasting life” and expect people to respond. It doesn’t impress some people because they do not think Jesus is the only way to the God. The only thing which will impact people is a life which has been totally transformed by Jesus Christ, and is evident to those around. When people see us living unselfish lives of love and care for them, they will have to acknowledge that Jesus has made a difference in our life, and will make a difference in their life. In our Monday night Bible study we were discussing this very issue, and someone said our response could be, “don’t knock it until you try it.” People are not looking to see if we have a good argument, they want to know how much we care. Do we demonstrate how much Jesus had personally touched our life.
[Remind people of the leaves or have people write down names of people to pray for and invite to church for Easter where they will hear about Jesus being the resurrection and life.] Let me ask you, how much have you demonstrated your unselfish love and care for the people who have listed?
