Jesus Encounters: "I Am the Way and the Truth and the Life"
Rev. Cynthia Anderson, March 9, 2008 Lost on a back road in Alabama, a motorist asked the way to Montgomery. An old farmer, sitting on a fence, looked down the road, scratched his head and gave explicit instructions. Half an hour later, after following the farmer's directions carefully, the motorist found himself back at the starting point. The farmer was still sitting on the fence, in placid contemplation of the landscape. “Hey, what's the idea?” the motorist demanded. “I did just what you told me, and look where I wound up!” “Well, young feller,” the farmer explained, “I didn't aim to waste my time telling you how to get to Montgomery till I found out if you could follow simple directions.”1 I wonder if Jesus sometimes felt like that farmer. He kept giving the disciples directions and they just had so much trouble understanding them and following them. Today, Jesus is preparing his friends for the events that are to come. He knows the cross is before him and he will be returning to God, his Father, and he’s giving those last instructions, those crucial directions about where he is going and how they are to follow him there. And the disciples are just not getting it. They are scared and uncertain and terribly confused. In our story for today, Jesus begins by reassuring them that God’s life is bigger than they can imagine and there is plenty of room for them. In fact, Jesus himself is going to prepare their rooms and he will come back for them. But he reassures them, they already know the way to the place where he is going – that is they know the way to God. But instead of being reassured, the disciples go in to something of a tizzy. Thomas, always the one with his feet planted firmly on the ground, speaks up. Look, he says, what do you mean “we know where you’re going.” We don’t have a clue – how could we? How are we supposed to know the way, especially after you leave to go wherever it is you’re going?” Thomas wants to know where the map is – he wants the destination marked with an “x” and he wants to know what roads they’re supposed to follow to get there. Jesus responds by reframing the directions and refocusing the disciples. Look, he says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” I’m the road, me in myself. I’m the way to the Father. You know me, so you also know God who sent me. And as you follow me, as you live in me and I live in you, then you are on the way to seeing God, to life with God.” Jesus himself makes the truth and life of God visible in the world and he himself is the way, the very road that leads to God. Now two thousand years may have passed, but we still struggle with Jesus’ directions. One of the initial stumbling blocks for a lot of folks in our increasingly pluralistic, diverse world, amid a culture that is cynical and suspicious about any truth claims at all, is the mere fact that Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” It just sounds so exclusivist to our modern ears. And so we get all tangled up in the words and in the modern meanings we associate with them. Some respond by trying to soften the words, rendering them more to the effect of -- Jesus: a way, a truth, a life, among many other possibilities -- and with warnings that we shouldn’t allow Jesus to be too bold with any claims about a relationship with God. Others respond on the opposite end of the spectrum, digging in their heals and stressing the way, the truth, the life, with the effect that their message becomes totally focused on the fact they have the way and anybody who doesn’t believe exactly what they believe, in exactly the same way, is going to be irretrievably lost. Sadly, during most of the last decades, we have seesawed between those two polarized readings of Jesus’ directions and often find ourselves in a cul-de-sac, going endlessly around the same circle with little actual movement -- and little ability to provide a resounding witness to a new life in Christ that others would want to look at more closely. I’m not saying that this text is easy, or that we shouldn’t grapple with the finer points of its meaning in today’s world, or the ways in which the meaning can be skewed in harmful directions. But unfortunately, in our debated stumbling over the words, we are often in danger of losing the essence of Jesus’ meaning. It’s hard to overlook that Jesus is here calling himself the way, the truth and the life, the road to God with whom he is one. Watering it down to make it more palatable to the world in general may not be the best way to proceed. But neither is it helpful to use the words as a weapon to beat others into submission with a kind of arrogant assumption that we have all the answers and are sitting pretty. Jesus continually reminds us that God’s house is a big, big house and there is room for everyone – he came to offer God’s love to all. It’s not just about having the right answers, checking off the right beliefs, nor is it simply practicing a kind of tepid tolerance that is afraid of claiming any truth or witnessing to new life. We need to look deeper than just the words to Jesus’ intent here. He is reassuring his disciples -- that’s us -- that even though we can’t see him, even though he is no longer physically present, he has not abandoned us. Rather he has prepared an eternal home for us and he himself is the very road we take toward home. He’s there, solidly beneath us, solidly behind and in front of us every step of the way. The way is a person, with whom we can have a real, living, personal relationship that can change our lives. The way is a person, who calls us to live in community with one another as fellow travelers. The point that he’s driving his disciples to see is that he is the road and we need to get walking – not speculating or arguing about what he means, but putting one foot in front of the other and following him. Jesus urges us to plant our feet firmly on him and to take the next step we need to take into a future he has secured for us. We can walk with confidence, not because we know the right answers or because we have some vague hope that things will somehow come right. We can walk with confidence because Jesus has already been over every piece of terrain we might encounter and he knows the way over, under, through and around it all. He himself has paved that path with his own footsteps and he takes us by the hand and leads us on, one step at a time, right into the very heart of God’s life. So the question is, what causes us trouble with Jesus’ directions -- where are our stumbling blocks? Do we, like Thomas, want the complete road map in front of us, with detailed instructions and a close up view of every twist and turn before we are willing to start out on the Jesus road? Or perhaps, we’re one of those folks who just doesn’t like to take or follow directions, much less ask for them. We like to think we can blaze our own trail and any kind of advice or directions are rather unwelcome. So we’re not sure we want to follow the Jesus road if we can’t be in the driver’s seat. Or perhaps we’re reluctant because parts of the road look bumpy and even narrow. We can see a cross in the distance and it’s right in the middle of the road. We’re not sure it’s the best path – we’d rather avoid those difficulties and so we spend our time looking around for detours. But if we look closely enough, we see that the cross is in the middle of the road, but precisely at that point, the road widens as it moves toward an all encompassing light and love, where God waits with open arms for us. That’s the Jesus road, the way that his life, death and resurrection open up between us and God. We don’t get a complete road map with detailed instructions. We don’t get to be in the driver’s seat all the time – we follow. And there are bumpy, difficult places in the road, unexpected twists and turns, steep drops, sharp rises, as well as level, smooth stretches. But Jesus is the road beneath us and the one who leads us through every twist, every seemingly impassible stretch, the one who leads us past the false detours that look so promising and lead no where, the one who always, always leads us to the truth and life of God. On stretches of mountain roads during road construction season, travel can be particularly difficult. One writer recalls traveling a section of mountain road in West Virginia that was being completely repaved. It was a total and very hazardous mess. The one way cars were allowed to navigate through that construction was to wait for what was called a Pilot truck. That truck would literally lead the way through the confusion of bumps and ruts and sharp turns to the other side. Affixed to the truck was this sign: Pilot truck: follow me. Friends we have the best pilot, the best navigator of all, because he built the road and walked it before us. Jesus calls us to start walking and to follow him – the way, the truth and the life. Thanks be to God. Amen. 1 SourceBook of Wit and Wisdom (Canton, Ohio: Communication Resources, Inc., 1996), 85a. |
