I recently taught a Sunday school lesson on John 14:6. In that verse, Jesus responded to Thomas, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
KirklandBut what prompted this declaration by Jesus? He had told his disciples again and again that he soon would leave them, that they would look for him but not find him. As words of comfort, he said he would prepare a place for them where he was going, and one day they would join him there.
Be gracious in your opinion of the disciples; we would not have understood what Jesus was talking about either.
Jesus added to their confusion by telling them, “You know the way to the place I’m going.”
Thomas could not resist speaking up at that point. “Lord,” he asked, “We don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Early Christians were called “people of the way.” Jesus and the relationship they had with him were all the religion the first followers of our Lord knew. It was enough. For the living of their days, they took to heart and put into practice what Jesus had taught them. For them, “the way” was obedience to the Great Commandment, to love God with their whole being and to love their neighbor as much as they loved themselves. “Do this,” Jesus said in Luke 10:28, “and you will live.”
For the first five centuries, people viewed Christianity as a way of life, a practical spiritual pathway that transformed the lives of all who believed. They had to be disciplined as students of the teachings of Jesus. It was a way of life that had to be learned in a community of faith, what we call the church. And it took time. Much time, now as then.
We, at times, grow nostalgic for what we call the “good old days.” We yearn for, and sing about, that “old-time religion.” Old-time religion is good if it’s old enough — that is, if it goes all the way back to the beginnings of our faith. You and I find common ground with Christians of old through the Great Commandment. What is the common denominator? It is not that our world is like theirs. And it is not that they somehow knew how to be better Christians than we do. Rather, we find our commonality as people of “the way.” Like theirs, our commitment must be to order our lives around our love for God and our love for our neighbors.
In 2005, Paul Raushenbush delivered a chapel address at Princeton University entitled “Finding the Way.” In it he said, “As a Christian, I say unapologetically, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. The word has been made flesh and revealed on earth in order to transform our lives through the power of love. The truth of this statement gives me such joy and a burning desire to know Jesus as best I can in community with all of you and beyond these walls. We do this by celebrating communion together with the cup of salvation and the bread of life — even with people we disagree with. We do this by praying the Lord’s prayer together — even with people we disagree with. We do this by sharing each other’s pain and joy, and sharing Jesus’ love along the way.”
On the Sunday I taught the lesson, a class member led us in singing, “The Way of the Cross Leads Home.”
It is a reminder that the way Jesus spoke of was, and is, the path of suffering and sacrifice. To be a follower of Jesus, we must lay our very lives on the altar of sacrifice. The Holy Spirit must control our hearts. But the way of the cross leads us where Jesus is and where we want to go — home, where our Lord “waits at the open door.”
Given the fact that I am directionally challenged, I am grateful that Jesus didn’t say he would tell us the way. Months ago, my wife and I visited our grandson Preston in Charleston. His friend Chloe had a class assignment to work one afternoon at a community center well beyond the city limits of Charleston. None of us knew exactly how to get there. Not reluctant to ask for directions (sorry, men), I stopped at a little café that I hoped was near the community center. I was directed by one of the people inside to a customer who knew the way. He led me outside the café and began to tell which way to go and where, and in what direction, to turn. A customer leaving the café heard our conversation. She came over to me and said, “Follow me and I’ll take you there.” Which she did. For me, she WAS the way to our destination.
And so it is with Jesus. There was no need for him then or now to tell us how to arrive at our eternal home with him. By his spirit, he simply takes us by the hand and says, “Follow me and I’ll take you there.”