John 14:1-6
1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
4 You know the way to the place where I am going."
5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (NIV)
I. FINDING THE WAY
In South Carolina, there is a tradition that when there is a funeral – after the church service everyone goes to the cemetery for a graveside service. I know there’s nothing radically strange about that. We often do the same thing here. But here, and in other communities I’ve lived, when all the cars line up to leave the church to go to the cemetery, the one who drives in the front of the line is the funeral director and the hearse.
But in South Carolina, tradition demands that the minister leads everyone.
I hated that tradition.
While I was a pastor of a church in South Carolina, I probably did 20 or 30 funerals. Every single one involved a different cemetery. I never knew where I was going, so how could I know the way?
I broke with tradition and always demanded that the hearse lead the way.
It seemed like a smart idea, especially after what I heard happened to the poor minister at the First Baptist Church.
He was doing his first funeral and everything had gone fine. At the end of the church service, all of the people got into their cars, and since he was the type of person who always followed tradition, he led the way to the cemetery.
He slowly pulled out of the parking lot, and was followed by the hearse and some 40 or 50 cars.
He slowly drove down the road. Made a left turn on Elm Street. Then a right turn on highway 25. Then slowly moved along.
He was driving slowly because that’s what you do in a funeral procession. All the cars drive slowly.
But the problem with driving slowly, is that you mind tends to wander.
The Baptist minister began to think about the graveside service.
Then he thought about what he was going to do afterward.
He remembered his grass needed cutting.
He thought about whohe hated cutting grass.
You get all dirty and sweaty and thirsty.
Thirsty.
It would be nice to have a nice cold Coca Cola.
As he slowly drove by a McDonalds, he realized how thirsty he was just thinking of cutting the grass.
So he pulled into the drive-thru at that McDonalds.
Followed of course by a hearse and some 40 or 50 cars full of baffled and confused mourners.
Yep. It’s best to let someone who knows where they are going lead the way.
Not everyone is good about leading the way. Not everyone can find the way from point A to point B. I worked with someone once who never could find his way around town. We’d have a staff lunch and agree to meet at Chili’s Restaurant, and he would end up at the Outback Restaurant. It got bad. Finally when we were going out for our annual Christmas party, I had to assign another staff person to drive this person to the restaurant.
In our New Testament lesson, Jesus is telling his disciples how to get from point A to point B – how to get from this life to eternal life. How to get from the kingdom of this world, to the kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus is meeting with his disciples for one last time before his arrest and crucifixion. There is a long conversation in John’s Gospel, and at one point, Jesus tells his disciples not to be worried or upset.
"Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus told them. “Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."
In other words, Jesus knows how to get from Point A – this life – to Point B – eternal life. And Jesus also says that WE know that way.
But Thomas, who has this wonderful gift of being practical, says, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Now I know a lot of you women out there make fun of us menfolk because you say we never ask for directions. Let the record show that the Bible says, it was a man who asked for directions. Not Mary. Not Martha. But Thomas was the one who said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
We’re not talking about directions to a party, or a restaurant, or a service. We are talking about the most important destination there is. The final destination. Eternal life. Heaven.
We have to get these directions right. How do we get from Point A – where we are now – to Point B – Heaven? We’ve got to get these directions right. And thank God for Thomas, who asked that question, “how can we know the way?”
II. JESUS IS THE WAY
The answer Jesus gave was simple, and for centuries, Christians accepted it without question.
“I am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus said. “No one comes to the Father, except through me.”
Great answer.
But lately, the church has begun to wonder. Was Jesus speaking the truth or not?
Is Jesus the way, or a way to God?
III. THE ARROGANCE OF CHRISTIANITY?
We live in a multicultural community. We have to be tolerant of one another. People in our neighborhoods speak different languages, come from different countries, have skins of various shades, and sometimes have different religious faiths. If we are going to get along in South Florida, we have to have respect for one another.
But – the people in our community often look with disfavor upon those of us who are Christians. And the main reason is that they view us as arrogant.
Some of you remember that we were trying to put up a bell tower on the corner of our property. We wanted to make our church more visible to traffic that flows by our property, and this has been a dream for a long time – longer than the seven years that I’ve been here.
A cellular telephone company agreed to build the bell tower for us, as long as they could put up communications equipment in it.
To anyone passing by, it would look like a bell tower, complete with a cross on top. The telephone company would build it, maintain it, and even give us extra money every month.
Well, as you surely have noticed, the bell tower never went up.
We had so many delays and then the economy took a down turn and the telephone company decided not to build it.
The delay came from the community, who fought tooth and nail against the bell tower. Why would the neighborhood be opposed to this?
They were not opposed to the bell tower – they were opposed to Christianity.
I went to one community meeting and heard several people agree that they would support the bell tower, as long as we did not put a cross on top.
One person even said, “You could put up a Star of David, or an Islamic Crescent, but the Cross is offensive to us. You Christians say you have the only way to God and that is an offense.”
It’s true. People are offended at Christians because we say we have the only way to God.
Well, aren’t all of us offended when we meet people who say they have the only truth? Aren’t we suspicious when we hear someone talk about how they have the truth and nobody else has the truth but them?
The world is getting tired of us. They are getting fed up with Christians because of our arrogance. Arrogance! Meaning we know the way, and nobody else has the way. We have the truth, and no one else has the truth. We get to go to heaven, but the rest of the world can go to hell.
How do we resolve that problem of arrogance?
A lot of Christians are re-evaluating how literally they want to understand and accept these words of Christ in our New Testament Lesson, when Jesus said, “I am THE way, THE truth, THE life. No one comes to the Father, EXCEPT through me.”
We all have loved ones and friends who are Jews. Or Muslims. Or Hindu. Or who have no faith at all. Or who are simply confused about their spirituality and have not yet taken the time or opportunity to make a decision about what they believe.
It is hard to look at people we know and arrogantly say, “I know the way. It’s the only way to God.”
Some Christians resolve this by adjusting their theology in such a manner that they refuse to believe that Christ is THE way, but rather simply A way to God. In our multi-cultural community, it is comforting to many to believe that all roads lead to God.
Jews are God’s chosen people. The Bible says so.
Therefore surely they are saved.
Muslims worship the same God we worship. One of their bedrock principles says, “There is One God.”
Therefore surely anyone who worships the one God will be saved.
Hindu, Buddhists, all of those folks seek to develop their spirituality. Won’t God honor their search?
And what about those people who live now, or lived in the past, who never knew the Gospel? One of my ancestors was the first Native American in what would later be the state of Virginia to become a Christian. When you think about HER ancestors, they lived before any Christian set foot on the new world. Does that mean none of them were saved?
And what about people who are just plain good and descent people? Aren’t they saved?
IV. THE UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST
But if you resolve the problem of the arrogance of Christians in this way, all you have succeeded in doing is depriving Christ of His uniqueness.
The cornerstone of the Christian faith is that Christ died for our sins.
In St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, we read, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
And of course, what is probably the most familiar passage of Scripture teaches us in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
The belief that Christ is the only way to salvation has historically been a cornerstone of the Presbyterian faith. But some people – Presbyterians and other Christians, are now saying that “all roads lead to God.”
When you say that, you strip Christ of His uniqueness.
If all roads lead to God, then why send the Son of God to suffer and die for our salvation?
If all roads lead to God, then why not just send the Son of God to teach us and inspire us and leave it at that?
All Roads DO Lead To God – But…
The truth of the matter is that the Bible actually does teach that all roads do lead to God.
Jesus did not say, “No one comes to God except through me.”
What he told Thomas and all of us is, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Did you hear the difference?
Jesus did not say, “No one comes to God except through me.”
He said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
All roads lead to God. The Christian road. The Jewish road. The Muslim road. Even the Atheistic road.
Jesus tells us in Matthew’s Gospel that there will be a time when all people will end their journey and come face to face with God. However, while all roads lead to God, it is not necessarily what we all people might hope for.
Jesus puts it this way: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him.”
Well, so far, so good. All roads lead to God. “All nations will be gathered around him.” But, Jesus continues.
“All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”
Now, as Jesus explains it, He will say to some, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”
But then, Jesus looks at the others and will say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”
All roads lead to God, but at the end of most roads, people encounter God as a judge.
We read about this final judgment often in Scripture. In St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, we read, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” II Corinthians 5:10
In Revelation, there is a stunningly visual account in which the writer says, “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” (Rev 20:12)
V. A ROAD TO GOD THE JUDGE--OR GOD THE FATHER?
Well, if all roads lead to God and that at the end of that road we find a judge, why say there is anything unique about Christ and Christianity?
It all goes back to the New Testament lesson, in which Jesus was giving directions to Thomas about how to get from Point A to Point B -- How to get from this world to eternal life.
Jesus did not say “No one comes to God except through me.” He said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
If all roads lead to God anyway, then at the end of that road I would rather face God my Father, rather than God my Judge.
I want to approach God as a child of God.
Now how do we become children of God – rather the accused in the courtroom of God?
St. John said it plainly at the beginning of his Gospel: “to all who received Christ, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12-13
Or as Jesus put it in today’s New Testament lesson, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
What about the non-Christians? Will they have eternal life? It’s best to let God be the Judge.
James warned us in his epistle (James 4:11-12), “Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it … There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you-- who are you to judge your neighbor?”
And Jesus said (in Matthew 7:1), “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”
All of the people in our community, whatever their faith, will be led to God. We let God judge them. It’s not our place to judge.
But never forget there is a uniqueness about Christ that allows us to approach God as His children.
