Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves 12
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.
13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
I am the way the truth and the life. How many times have you heard this? It is almost as well-known as, For God so loved the world…or This is the
day the Lord has made, or, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength…but do we really understand what Jesus is saying here? Do we really grasp the faith that it takes to believe this, the faith it takes to live like these words of
Jesus mean something?
Think of the context that finds the Lord saying this: I am the
way and in a matter of hours He will be made to bear unimaginable shame and end up hanging, impotent on a Roman cross with despised and debased criminals. I
am the truth and in still less time than that, there will be all kinds of people accusing him of lying, of blaspheming and of using His own words against
him. He was not believed even by his own family! I am the life and
the very next day his dead body would be put into a tomb.
Even today, if we are honest, it cannot be seen with the naked eye that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life…a great number of people deny this and actually argue,
to the persuasion of many, that he was a religious nut, a liar and was killed and remained dead. And sadly, to watch the way many who say they do believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and life, live their lives, we wouldn’t conclude that Jesus being
the way the truth and life means all that much.
Then you tweak this with the ending of verse six and Jesus saying that He is the only way to God, the only way to heaven, that apart from Him no one will find joy
in the world to come, and we have in one verse words tailor made to offend everyone, at least to offend all modern sensitivities. And make no mistake about it, that is exactly what Jesus is saying. There is one way, not many, there is one truth, unchanging,
and in Him and Him only is life found, in this world and the one to come.
And do not short sell Philip in verse 8 for that too is much more profound that we first might think. When Philip says “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us,” he
said more than he knew. In seeking the sight of God, Philip joined the long and illustrious line of men and women through the ages who understood that there is no greater good, no higher blessing, no experience that would be so wonderfully elevating, purifying,
and productive of everything good for a human being than just to see God as He is in his everlasting glory.
To finally see God is to enter into the complete fullness of what it means to be a human being created in His image. This is where man is finally and only his or her true self, in the
presence of God, made righteous and welcomed. There is nothing greater. This was the same request that Moses made, that he should see the glory of God, but he was allowed to see only its after-effects as God hid him in the cleft of a rock and covered him with
his hand while he passed by, else Moses would be consumed and destroyed by that divine glory.
We were made for God. We were made to walk with God and to have fellowship with God, as Adam did in the Garden. Sin meant that we have been banished from God’s presence, our sins, Isaiah
tells us, have made a separation between us and God. And that is the very reason that God the Son was in the world to begin with! Jesus came into the world to bridge that great gap our sins had created and to bring us back to God.
In this life we come part way, — we are given a certain sight of God and in worship, if we are coming to Him by faith, a most profound encounter with God, – but, in the world to come,
believers in Jesus Christ will go the rest of the way – as close as a creature can come. It is a sight that will change us forever. Even the sight of the man Jesus Christ with his glory on Him will change us: as the Scripture says, we shall be made like him
because we shall see Him as He is.
Philip knew enough to know that if he could only see God he would never be the same man, his desires, his affections, his will, would be enveloped up into that vision…and he would forever
after be a man changed never to be the same again.
Dante describes the scene at the end of the Paradiso. Many have pointed out that Dante’s Inferno, his description of hell, is a work of greater genius, of greater power, than the Paradiso,
his description of heaven. Some have argued that it is easier for human beings to imagine and describe hell than it is for them to understand what is meant by the glory of God. The argument is that it is easier for men who live largely without the glory of
God to imagine the absence of that glory than it is to know what it will be like to see it and live in its presence. Hell, on the other hand…punishment, deepest darkness with unmet longing…that we can relate to a little easier. Dante did his best, but I’ll
bet he knew that it was not nearly good enough.
It just can’t be argued that men and women seek meaning, hope, joy, peace, and especially deathless love – all that finally and truly can be found only in God and the sight of God –
even if they must look for them everywhere else. They seek God, even as they run from God and rebel against God. When the Apostle Paul describes the condition of mankind in sin, in Ephesians 2:12, when he says that mankind is “without God in the world.” In
God’s world, without God. That is the curse and the condition of human beings.
As one author put it: Man was made to be with God, to find perfection only in the presence of God their maker, but sin has separated them from God and so they must spend the days
of their sojourn in this world anxiously looking for what they cannot find. Sometimes this looking in all of the wrong places is done religiously, even in very Christian forms, sometimes philosophically in very anti-Christian forms. Sometimes it is done without
any overt reference at all to the search for the way, the truth, and the life. In this way, the nominal Christian, however religious his type, the practitioner of some other faith, and the worldly agnostic or atheist are finally all the same. They are looking
for the beatific vision in places where it cannot be found. They cannot help but look for it, for that is how they have been made.”
In verse 12 Jesus makes the promise that those who believe Him, will do greater things than what they have seen Jesus doing. What greater things did the followers of Jesus do? What greater
things happened later in redemptive history? The disciples would proclaim the Kingdom of God and its King and thousands of people would put their faith in Jesus! Never in the Bible do we see these kinds of numbers being brought into the church!
Prayer: Father, I know that things are not always as they appear. I know that Your kingdom is not yet seen by all. But I also know how easy it is for me to fail to live according
to that which is unseen. Forgive me Lord for being so drawn to the world of sight instead of the world of faith. Give me grace to realize that I was made to live with You and may I take my place in the house You are preparing for me, through Jesus Christ my
Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Blessed Jesus at Your Word