John 14:1-7
February 17, 2010
“THE JESUS WAY”
I was becoming a bit frantic. Dare I admit it? I was lost. It was a Thursday evening several years ago. I remember the day was Thursday because it was a Church Council meeting night. I had told Emily, the only one home, that I was going to go for a run on the TART trail behind our house, and I would be back in plenty of time for dinner, a shower, and the short drive back to the church.
I had been running for quite some time, my mind focusing on something other than the path I was taking. When I finally looked up nothing seemed familiar. I had run out of the familiar wooded area of the TART trail, and I had no clue which way to go. I also realized that time had passed much more quickly than I would have liked. It would take too long to try to retrace my steps since I hadn’t been paying attention to the way I had come. I began to look for something, anything that would resemble civilization … a roof, a sign, something. Do I go left? Do I go right? Forward? Backward? For a few moments I heard someone playing a trumpet in the distance, (this is the truth) and the person was playing “Amazing Grace.” A sign from the Almighty himself, thought I, so I tried to move in the direction of my angel Gabriel or Gabriella. Alas, he/she stopped playing before I could locate a house. Not what?
To make a longer story shorter, significant time passed after hearing the trumpet sounds when I spied a roof. Walking down a hill and then up again, I walked into someone’s backyard. That someone was on his back porch with a 22 rifle in his hands, target practicing on squirrels. We saw one another at about the same time and both of us were startled. Actually, I was more startled, because he was the one with the gun. I pleaded my case, asked for a ride back to my house so that I could get to my meeting, and then I listened to the mumbled conversation between his wife and him. She protested when he mentioned I could use a ride. Maybe I was a serial killer. Yeah, I’d whip out a dagger from my gym shorts or come up with a derringer from my tennies! Anyway, eventually she relented, I climbed in his front seat, he apologized for the noisy muffler that he still needed to replace, and I made a mental note to grab my wallet when we reached my house to help repair said muffler. I was extremely thankful. He was my way home.
In John the Gospel writer’s 14th chapter, Jesus tells his disciples, including you and me, that he is our way home. “Don’t let this throw you,” says Jesus from the Message translation of our text. “You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”
After Thomas confessed their sense of the same kind of lost-ness I felt on that Thursday, “we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way,” Jesus answered in this way, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
Did you notice? He did not simply say, “I know the way,” or “I’ll draw you a map of the way,” or “I’ll help you find the way,” but I am the way. Jesus is our way home.
The Jesus way. “Way” symbolizes a journey with a destination. Jesus is the path we will take. Jesus’ way of living is the example for our way of living, and the only way we can begin to master Jesus’ way of living is to follow him, walk beside him, listen to him speak, watch him respond. We are his apprentices, his disciples. It is on the job training. He is the way, the journey, and we follow him to the destination.
Eugene Peterson is the author of the book The Jesus Way that will be utilized for these mid-week Lenten services. He says that Jesus purposely spoke the sequence of Jesus as way, truth, and life in that order. Peterson says that when the Jesus way is wedded to the Jesus truth there is the Jesus life. Living the way Jesus lived plus learning the Jesus truths equals the Jesus life. It does us no good to know about Jesus, the Jesus truths, without also living Jesus’ ways. He writes “we can’t proclaim the Jesus truth and then do it any old way we like. Nor can we follow the Jesus way without speaking the Jesus truth.”
If you and I are Christians, then Jesus matters. Jesus is the way we get to God and the way God gets to us. Jesus says in our text, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
“Way”, the Jesus way has other symbolism attached to it as well. Jesus is not only our way home, but his are the ways we travel while on the Jesus way. Remember, we can’t do it any old way we like. The way we talk on the Jesus way, the way we treat one another, the way we use the internet, the way we tell the truth, the way we choose our priorities for the day, the way we vote, or eat, or act in tense situations all ought to resemble the ways Jesus would do those things if he were us. Jesus is not only the way to the destination, but his are the ways we live along the way. The Jesus way.
It is amazing how Scripture is filled with connections. Right out of the gates in Mark’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 14-18, Jesus provides us with the ways to begin walking his way. “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the
So, it is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Lent itself is a journey, a way to walk the
Jesus is our way home. Amen
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