4 Lent 2013
Father Adam Trambley
March 10, 2013, St.
John’s Sharon
“I am the Way, and
the Truth, and the Life”
I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
This morning we look at the question of “Who is Jesus?” from
the perspective of Jesus’ role in leading us to the Father in who he was and
through his teaching.
Jesus is the Way, so much so that early Christians referred
to their fellowship as the Way.
Specifically, he is the way to the Father. Following that way of Jesus is also truth and
life for us, as we know him and go to the Father with him.
The first step along the way is a relationship with
Jesus. He says that, “If you know me,
you will know my Father also. From now
on you do know him and have seen him.”
Jesus says that seeing him is like seeing the Father. They are the same. The difference is that Jesus came to dwell on
earth and the Father remained in heaven.
Too often, when we try to picture God the Father, we think about some
white-haired, old guy, and we think of Jesus as a younger thirty-three-year-old
that looks very different. Now if it
helps you to think of God the Father as Santa Claus sending the gift of
salvation by his Son, we can probably work with that. But scripture tells us that looking at Jesus
is the same as looking at the Father, the only difference being that we can see
Jesus. If we want to picture the Father
in our minds, we should probably picture him looking like Jesus. Have you ever seen photos of a father and son
who look identical at the same age, but now one looks older and more
grey-haired? Think the same thing about
Jesus’ Father, only he never developed age lines or grey hair, because why
would he? Do you think that being King
of the Universe causes God too much stress that his hair turns grey and falls
out? Of course not – that’s why he’s
God!
Jesus is so much like his Father in every way that just
knowing him and relating to him tells us how to relate to God the Father. When we do what would make Jesus’ happy, we
are doing what would make the Father happy.
When we structure our lives in accordance with what Jesus told us, our
lives become what the Father wants for us.
When we serve the least of our brothers and sisters so that we serve
Jesus, we are serving the Father also.
Part of how we come to Jesus as the Way is by living the way
he taught us. The Way is a person, but
that person is also the fulfillment of God’s path to life given to us to
follow. Heeding his teaching and example
is how we follow his way to fullness of truth and life in God.
We might think about our way to God historically in three
phases. Before human beings sinned, we
were in the garden and we walked with God.
People had a direct relationship with him and knew him. After we sinned, God gave us the law, called
in Hebrew the Torah. Although the Torah
contained rules, it was not meant to be so much of a legal code as a path to
life with God. Psalm 19 is a hymn to the
beauty of the law to the Jewish people – sweeter than honey; more to be desired
than fine gold; enlightening the eyes, rejoicing the heart. Good stuff, but the problem was that the law
itself didn’t give people the ability to keep it. Too many people went from following the law
as a living path to God to using it as a way to build up religious institutions
and control people. The outer law was
lifted up, but what God really wanted was people’s hearts. (This false outer piety is always a problem
for good standards of behavior, and creeps into Christian ideals, too often, as
well.)
Since the law could not save or keep us on its path itself,
Jesus came as the way and as the Good Shepherd.
Last week we talked about Jesus as the Good Shepherd with his rod and
his staff able to keep us on the path.
This guiding role is no small thing for us. When we stray, and sometimes we all stray,
God comes to find us and drag us back onto the right road. Often we still struggle. Sometimes we go kicking and screaming. Sometimes, I think Jesus waits and watches us
as we throw a fit, keeping the wolves away as long as possible until we settle
down and he can pick us up and carry us home.
Most of you have heard the poem footprints, about how
someone sees two sets of footprints on the beach, except sometimes there is
only one set. Jesus says that we walked
together but where there is one set, I was carrying you. I recently heard an addendum about places
where there was one set of footprints and a line next to them, and Jesus said,
“That’s where I had to drag you on your butt kicking and screaming.” Thankfully, the Good Shepherd knows how to
use the rod and staff when necessary.
Jesus comes, then, able to save us and keep us on the way to
the Father. As the way, Jesus has also
given us some pretty good directions.
Most of what he says deals with a revolution of the heart. Although Jesus is pretty clearly against
certain behaviors, he is usually focused on our motivations and what is
happening inside of us. He calls us to
transform our hearts into the same loving hearts that he has, and then follow
where that love leads us. That amazing,
unconditional, extravagant, self-giving love is the crux both of Jesus’ example
and his teaching.
Think about the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus doesn’t just want us not to kill people
or commit adultery. He wants us to love
people enough not to look on them scornfully in our own minds or even to call
them names. He wants us to go beyond
fairness and be taken advantage of by others – turning the other cheek or
giving beyond what is stolen from us out of love for someone else. He tells us to meet the needs of the hungry
and the homeless and the prisoner and the sick and others who can never give
back to us in return, even when it costs us.
He tells us to forgive others, even if they are killing us. And everything he tells us to do, he does
himself.
None of this path of Jesus is easy. But if we spend our time getting close to
him, his love fills our hearts and we become more and more able to love like
him. The great spiritual disciplines are
all designed to help us draw closer to Jesus and be more Christ-like. Our time in prayer, in Bible study, in
church, confessing our sins and encouraging each other, fasting, giving,
practicing love by serving one another, and anything else fruitful that we do
for God all help us come closer to Jesus so that our hearts can become as
love-filled as his.
As our hearts overflow with God’s love, our lives exhibit
the same qualities of love that Jesus’ live showed. What we want to do becomes what God wants us
to do because we are acting from love, and those acts take us along the path to
God because they are what Jesus would do if he were us. We get closer to Jesus and we smoothly follow
in his way, and that way leads us to the Father because Jesus is the way to the
Father. The shepherd’s crook is needed
less as the Shepherd’s heart is heeded more.
Before we end today, one question I want to address that frequently
comes up about Jesus’ statement in today’s Gospel. Jesus says he is the way and “No one comes to
the Father except through me.” Does this
mean that non-Christians cannot be saved?
Some Christians say very clearly that if you aren’t baptized or if you
haven’t accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior you are in hell for
eternity. That position seems to me to
move a bit beyond what Jesus is saying.
I think the ultimate answer is that we don’t know for sure, but there
are a couple of things we can say.
First, Christians who have been baptized and who follow Jesus as their
Lord, living out his instructions and confessing their sins when they fall
short are promised an inheritance in God’s heavenly kingdom. If we are disciples of Jesus, we don’t need
to worry about our future, and that is a very good position to be in, and is a
position we would want everyone to be in.
Second, anyone who comes to God comes through Jesus. All religions are not the same and Jesus is
not the same as Buddha who is not the same as Mohammed who is not the same as
Krishna who is not the same as Moses.
The great teachers and prophets of other religious traditions may be
great teachers and prophets, and may even have had a genuine message of how to
live in a more godly way for their people, but only Jesus reconciled humanity
to God through his incarnation, life, death and resurrection. If those of others religions are saved, they
are saved because of the work that Jesus did and because somehow they have
finally come to him. Personally, I like
the way C.S. Lewis describes it in The
Last Battle, where the Christ-figure Aslan accepts as devotion to himself the
well-lived life of love from those worshipping other Gods. The other gods are demons, not God, but the
people trying their best are given the divine benefit of the doubt. When they die and see him as he is, they can
then accept or reject him, and those who tried to live lives of love accept him. I believe everyone will have a similar
opportunity to meet Jesus as judge on the last day, and those who decide to
love and follow him will have a place in heaven. Not everyone sees it this way, but to me this
understanding seems to take seriously both God’s saving love and human freedom. Of course, those of us who know and follow
Jesus now begin to receive the blessings of his eternal life immediately, and
will easily recognize him when he comes again.
That blessing is no small thing, and we want to share that joy with
everyone as soon as possible, bringing them to Jesus,
who says, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”
*Note: with permission
of bishop we are using alternative readings this Lent to focus on “Who is
Jesus?”
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