| The Ways in which Jesus is the Way |
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I. Water from a Deep Well Jesus had a way of saying the deepest, most penetrating things in simple language. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. This is the way you should pray: Our Father in heaven, holy is your name. May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us. Lead us away from temptation; deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Hardly a three syllable word in the bunch, most of them one syllable. All of them simple. Yet, never did a man say so much, and say it so well, in so few words. John chapter 14, verse six is such a saying. 19 simple words in English and in Greek. Yet I could preach for a summer on this one passage. I could preach for an hour on the single word “the” as in The way, the truth, the life. The one and only. But today I want to turn our attention to the phrase, “the way.” I want to ask, “What does Jesus mean when he says, ‘I am the way’?” What are the ways in which Jesus is the way? There are ways, many ways, in fact; more ways that we can ponder in a single morning. II. The First and Most Obvious Way Let’s begin with the first and most obvious way, the way that lies on the surface of this deep well. May I say that the obvious meaning is of utmost importance, as important as your eternal destiny? John chapter 13, verse 33. Let’s understand the context, the occasion, for this saying about the way. My children, Jesus says to his disciples on the night before his death, my children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me…Where I am going, you cannot come. Simon Peter asked him, verse 36, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now. But you will follow later.” “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus says, “Really? Something will happen first.” We all know what that is. Peter will deny him three times. But Jesus then says, chapter 14, verse 1 in words we often quote at funerals. Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Trust in me as well. In my Father’s house are many rooms…I am going there to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you may be where I am. Then Jesus surprisingly adds, You know the way to the place I am going. Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Doubting Thomas demands. We don’t know where you are going. Peter just said, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way? That’s when Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So, what is Jesus saying? The meaning is clear isn’t it? More clear to us than them back then because we have the benefit of knowing what was about to happen. Jesus was about to die on the cross and be raised, three days later, from the dead. Then 40 days after that to ascend into heaven, the place he was going. Jesus is saying, Thomas, Peter, men, I am the way to heaven. I am the only way to heaven, the only way to the Father in heaven. I am going there, going back there, actually. I am going to prepare a place for you. Then I am coming back and taking you with me to heaven. Please note, this is important, Jesus is not offering his men a road map. He is not saying to his disciples, Here, here is the map to heaven. If you study it, and follow it carefully, in every detail then you, too, can end up there. That is, by the way, what some people in this room, and many people outside this room, think Christianity is all about. It is a map to God and to the place where God dwells. If I read the map or listen to those religious leaders who read the map, and we do everything that the map tells us to do, then we’ll get to heaven. You know, go to church, take communion, get baptized, give our tithes and offering, be good, obey the rules. Jesus says, No, that’s not how it works. I am not just your teacher, teaching you the way to God. I am not just your example, showing you the way to God. I am the way to God and I am the only way. It is only through my life, my death and my resurrection that you, that anyone, can come to the Father and live forever in his holy presence. That is because our sin has separated us from the Holy One. We must be forgiven and not just forgiven. Our sins must be atoned for. They must be taken care of; they must be judged. Jesus offered himself as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. Jesus died on the cross in our place. He was judged for our sins. We have been forgiven in him. Jesus has made a way, the only way, to eternal life with the Father in heaven. Believe in me, Jesus says to his disciples and to us. Believe that I am the Way, the doorway to eternal life in heaven. So, do you? It would not be fair for me to say these things and not ask that question. Do you know the Way? Are you on this way or is your heart troubled? Troubled by the fear of death, by the uncertainty of what will happen when you pass from this life to the next? Are you troubled by the truth, if you can face it, that you are a sinner and the Bible says, Jesus says, that your sins separate you from your God? That they put you in place of judgment and that when you die you will be judged for your sins? The most troubling thing in all of life is the possibility that you alone in the Universe, and in the end of the day, you will be on your own and you will be left alone. But do not let your heart be troubled, Jesus proclaims. You believe in God. Believe also, trust, in me. I am the Way to the Father. I am going to the Father and I am preparing a place for everyone who believes in me. I am coming again to take you with me to the Father. That is the first and obvious meaning of this text. That is the first and obvious way in which Jesus is the way but it’s not the only way. Let’s go back to this deep well of wisdom found in these words of Jesus and draw one more time. III. The Way as a Journey, not a Destination As a way of lowering the bucket into this well, let me ask you to imagine something. Imagine that you were about to die soon, within a year. I also want to imagine, for the sake of the thought experiment, that you are a parent of two or three young children. What would you do? After going 2.7 seconds on a bull named Foo Man Chu, I mean? What would you want to say to your children? What would you write down in the journal you would leave behind? What words would you speak into that recorder? Well, I hope the first thing you would say is that Jesus is the way. That Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose from the dead for your salvation. If you will trust in Jesus like I trust in Jesus, I hope you will say, then you will see me again in the presence of God. If Jesus really is the truth and Jesus is really telling us the truth then there is no greater truth to pass on to those we love. But is that all you would want to tell your children before you die? Is that the only thing you would write in that journal or speak into that recorder? The truth about Jesus as the doorway to heaven at the end of the road? What about now? What about here? What about the rest of their lives on earth? What about marriage? What about the challenges they will face and the wisdom they will need along the way? Life is not just a destination, is it? Life is not just something that begins the day we die. It is here. It is now. Life is a journey, a journey that includes every moment of every day all along the way. When Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life; he means more that just I am the doorway to heaven. Look at the very next verse. John 14:7. If you really knew me, Thomas, you would know my Father as well. But from now on, after tonight and tomorrow and my resurrection 3 days later, from now on you do know him and you have seen him. That must have really puzzled Thomas and the rest of the disciples, too. What is Jesus saying now? I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father but by me. But if you really knew me, you would already know the Father. From now on, you do know him. In fact, you have been with Him. You have seen him. To which Philip replies, verse 8, Lord, show us the Father! That’s all we want. We want to see God. We want to know God. We want to be with God. Jesus says, Philip, Philip, Philip, Don’t you know me yet even after all these years? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father?” Don’t you believe in me, that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The way to the Father refers to something in the future. Yes, to life eternal in a new heaven and new earth; to a perfect, glorified, resurrected life but the way to the Father also refers to something present, something that can happen right now, something that is happening now. I will not leave you as orphans, Jesus said in John 14:18. I will come to you. By which he means, I will send my Spirit to live in you who believe. On that day, John 14:20, you will realize you will come to know from experience, that I am in the Father and you are in me and I am in you. You will come to realize that I am not just a doorway to eternity but I am the way to life with the Father right now, right here, this very moment. Jesus is the way to life with God and that way includes every moment of every day. Could you explain that to your children if you were going to die soon and leave them as orphans? Could you help them not be orphaned? Could you explain that to your friends who don’t experience life with God? Could you teach them, not just the way to heaven, but the way of Jesus to every day life with the Father? IV. Reflections on some ways in which Jesus is the way I trust you could. But to help you do it I would like to offer two or three reflections. Take them as the beginning of a list, a list which you will continue to fill in, the rest of your life. A list with the heading, the Ways in which Jesus is the Way to life with God. Here is one way. I offer it first because it leaps out from the words of Jesus in John 14; I also offer it because it is so, so very important. The way of Jesus, the way in which Jesus is the way, is a way of intimate communion. I said it earlier, but it bears repeating: Jesus has not given us a mere roadmap. He offers us companionship. Jesus actually said to his men, on the eve of his crucifixion, that it was good that he was going away. The reason why it was good is that he was sending them the Holy Spirit, God’s life-giving presence that would never go away. The presence of the Holy Spirit is better than the presence of Jesus. Think about that. Think about what these men had. They had Jesus on the Mount, the mount where the Sermon on the Mount was spoken which means they had the very words of Jesus ringing in their ears. They had his facial expressions. They had his tone of voice. They had the look in his eyes. They had the miracles, Jesus calming the storm, Jesus walking on water, Jesus feeding 5000 people with a little boy’s lunch. Here Jesus was telling them that what is coming is better than that. What is coming is what we all have if we experience Jesus as the way. We have the very presence of God in the person of His Spirit. We have his Spirit speaking his words and opening our eyes to His word spoken. We have the Spirit of Jesus giving us his power, his power to live alive to God. We have the opportunity to live every moment in intimate communion with the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Could you explain that to your children or to your friends? Not just proclaim it, but tell them what it looks like, what it feels like, to hear the voice of God, to feel the empowering presence of God? The way of Jesus is the way of intimate communion. Also, the way of Jesus is a way of obedience, of humble service. Remember Jesus’ final words to his followers? They are recorded in Matthew chapter 28. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. A disciple of Jesus is someone who has been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, the sign and symbol of faith in Jesus and someone who obeys everything Jesus commands. A new command I give you: that you love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this will all men know that you are my disciples: That you obey my command to love one another. The way of Jesus is a way of obedience to commands of God, which Jesus summarized in two great commandments. Love God with all your heart, soul and strength; and Love your neighbor as you love yourself. There is a difference; there is a difference between obedience that flows from love and obedience that is mere service to a Master. You know the difference. When you serve you husband or your wife, when you serve your children or grandchildren, the work may be hard, the sacrifice sometimes great. But there is joy in the service; because it is done in love. What Jesus is saying is that when you serve God out of love and you serve others because of the love of God, then the burden of obedience is easy and the yoke of service is light. Matthew 11:28. Jesus speaking to you and me: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, weary and burdened by life on some other way but the way of Jesus. Come to me…and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, learn from me what it is like to live a life of humble, obedient service to the Father. For I am meek and humble in heart and you will find rest, peace, for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The way of Jesus is a way of service and obedience. It is a yoke. But it is the right yoke, the yoke that will keep you walking with Jesus on the way that is a way of communion with the Father through the Spirit. Are you on that way? Do you know that way? There are so many other ways in which Jesus is the way, the way to life with God both now and forever. The way of Jesus is a way of incarnation, the way entering into the pain and suffering of those in need in order to set them free. The way of Jesus is a way of revelation, the way of seeing and savoring the truth of God in nature, in the human heart, in the word. The way of Jesus is a way of power not domination, but the power of inward transformation, the power of healing and helping in the name of God. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross, the way of dying to my old sinful self and living alive to God. The list could go on and on and on; I invite you to make you own list and to meditate upon the ways in which Jesus is the way to life with God. V. Concluding Comment But let me conclude with a two fold observation. The first has to do with what the earliest Christians were called. The second, with what those Christians were called to. Do you know what Christians were called before they were called Christians in Antioch? They were called “Followers of the way.” Acts 22:4. Paul is speaking to a crowd of angry Jews in Jerusalem. He says, I once persecuted the followers of this Way to their death…But then I met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus. The earliest believers were called followers of this way. Of course they were-because that is what they were. When Jesus called his disciples, what did he say to them? Did he say, Believe in me and I will give eternal life? I’ll bring you to heaven when you die? Yes, Jesus made those promises to his disciples. But that was not the essence of his invitation. That was not the core of what he called them to. No. He said, Come, follow me. To be a disciple is to be follower of Jesus on the Way. It is to follow the way of Jesus. It is to be yoked with Jesus. It is to be filled with the Spirit of Jesus so we can live like Jesus right now, so we can live a life of intimate communion with the Father through the Son by the empowering presence of His Spirit. It is an odd thought. To think of trusting in Jesus as the doorway to heaven, but not walking with Jesus on the way that leads to heaven. In fact, it is such an odd thought that the Bible doesn’t allow us to think it. You can’t believe in Jesus as the doorway to heaven if you are not trusting in Jesus as the way to life with the Father now and forever. Let’s pray. |
