The Way. The Truth. The Life
Easter 5
May 7, 2023
Fr. Tim Nunez
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
As we get into today’s Gospel, we need to know where and when we are.
When Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” there is a lot of tension and confusion in the room. This is at the last supper. Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet. Judas has left and Jesus has begun to tell them that he is going away. He is speaking about his death then ascension, but they are confused and don’t understand. Peter protests, says he will lay down his life for Jesus, and Jesus predicts Peter will deny him three times before the cock crows. Peter is crestfallen. Such anguish to hear that from his Lord!
What do you mean you’re leaving? Of course we are coming with you! They don’t know where he is going but they are committed to following him. They’ve been following him and while it has been astounding, it has been a hard road. Now they can’t?
It reminds me of the explorer Coronado. You may recall that a priest had assured him that there were seven legendary Golden Cities north of Mexico. So Coronado organized and led an expedition of a few thousand people into the desert, winding their way across the very forbidding country of what is now Arizona and New Mexico. And they dressed for danger, wearing heavy armor and steel helmets. It was hard to find water. Trudging along looking for something that isn’t actually out there.
But that drive to persevere kept them going. He sent a scouting party out to find the Colorado River, which they did - thousands of feet below them at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. They tried to get down to it but couldn’t. There was no way to cross it and they had no way of knowing how far it went.
Can you imagine? That big, impassable divide that closed off that direction. Coronado never found those seven golden cities. He did find Kansas.
Likewise, humanity has long explored and tried to observe and to understand the existence of God, in all his majesty and glory. God revealed to us, and we grew to understand ourselves, as created by an intelligent being impossibly beyond the capacity of our minds, one who is the very essence of good, of right, of truth and of love.
And we came to see the contrast between God’s perfection and our imperfection, such that there would be this impassable chasm, this grandest of canyons, between us and God, between our creator and his creation. It is a chasm of sin and death.
We’ve had witness to God’s presence and God’s word through the prophets and the experience of God’s people. He’s given us glimpses of that place where he wants us to be. How can we get there from here? But we get to the canyon and we just can’t find or make our own way across, and there is no way around it.
Imagine what it would have meant to Coronado if he had found a bridge across that divide, and if on the other side there was in fact that treasure he sought. Further, what if even the bridge itself was made of gold. How happy would he have been?
Now if we’ve got a touch of that explorer in us, we might be drawn to poking along the rim of the chasm of sin and death and see if we can find another path on our own. What if we try harder? What if we live longer? Can’t science figure this out? But we can’t get across that divide on our own. We need help. His help.
In the entire history of the universe Jesus is uniquely able to bridge that gap for us.
Jesus says, “Believe in God, believe also in me.” He is saying, “I’m the one who bridges that chasm for you. I am your destination, and I am the means of getting there. If you see me, you see the Father. If you know me, you know the Father. If you experience me, you experience the Father.”
Jesus has a seamless alignment of person, of will, of relationship, of substance with the Father. That’s an outrageous claim, except it is true. He’s the only one who claims it. Not one other great religious figure pointed to himself. Not Buddha, not Mohammed, not Confucius, no one in Hindu writers. We can easily find a religion or personal framework for our faith that makes sense for us and allows us to keep control.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” One of the key points of Jesus coming into the world was to give humanity a witness to the presence of God among us; to give us the bridge and show us the way across it, to bring us home to the place he’s prepared for us.
And there is another canyon. It divides our will from his will. The human mind, the human heart, is wired for self-reliance, for fight and flight, for self-preservation and personal needs, want and desires.
Once Jesus assures his disciples of their place with him, he turns to the more difficult issue – his place with them.
And so Jesus turns to comfort Peter, Thomas and all of them. Do not let your hearts be troubled. I’m going away but I am going ahead of you to prepare that place for you and you know the way. Doubting Thomas is doubting here, “How can we know the way?”
I am the way and the truth and the life.
That is true because you know I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Take that to heart, and the bridge is clear. This is comfort of knowing God through the person of Jesus Christ. He is the way because we are to follow him. He is the truth because he is in his person the ultimate truth, our destination is him, he and the Father are one. He is the life because we order our lives, our very sense of being, around him; family, work, worship, service, fellowship, ministry all centered on him.
The victory Christ won for us is not, however, a destination. It is an ongoing journey. The “dwelling places” or “the rooms” he describes are more like rest areas, inns along the way. We must not think of heaven as an eternal recliner. Yes, there will be rest, and we will move from strength to strength, from glory to glory. Life is about movement forward, it isn’t static. We don’t just get “there,” we go on in the Father’s house.
One may fear the chasm and be driven to Christ out of fear of suffering or of simply nothing. One may desire eternal life and be driven to Christ out of desire for that pain-free, tear-free life forever. I don’t think he really cares why we come to follow him, or how we come to follow him. Believe because of our experience of him, believe what he’s telling us or believe because of the works themselves. Just believe.
And it doesn’t begin when we die. It begins as soon as we decide to follow Jesus. We must take that to heart. We will walk down this road together. And you will because you know Jesus as the way, the truth and the life. He’ll show you how to get there from here, too.
AMEN