Week 9 - The Way, the Truth, and the Life
What we talked about In youth on Sunday
How do we gain access to God?
For Jesus’ disciples the answer to this question was greatly influenced by their Jewishness. The Jews understood that after the Exodus God resided with them first in a tabernacle, and then in a temple. This temple became the center of worship and life for Jews because it was God’s dwelling place. As such the Jews understood that the way they were to gain access to God and be in his presence was by going to the temple.
However, when we look at John 14:1-14, Jesus reframes how someone may gain access to God. Jesus tells his disciples that he is going and preparing a place for them, one where they “know the way to where I am going” (Jn. 14:4). Yet this statement puzzled the disciples. So Thomas asked Jesus, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” To which Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him” (Jn. 14:6-7).
When Thomas asked his question it is likely he expected Jesus to answer saying the way to God is through temple worship and sacrifice, since this was what he knew. However, like he often did, Jesus answered in an unexpected way, by essentially saying, “If anyone wants to be in the presence of God they need to be in my presence, because God the Father and I are one.” This is crazy! Jesus told Thomas and his other disciples that it is not through the temple that they enter God’s presence, rather it is through him, because Jesus is one with God (which means God was standing in front of them!).
What this then tells us about Jesus is that Jesus is the Son of God, who is united to the Father and the Spirit in such a way that to know Jesus is to know God. This is precisely what the Church Father’s found through their studying of the Scriptures in the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon. Through passages like John 14:1-14, they came to understand that Jesus is “Truly God and truly man, of a reasonable (rational) soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, yet without sin” (from the Chalcedonian Definition). In other words, because Jesus is one with God (or consubstantial with the Father), if we are to know God we need to know Jesus, because God has revealed himself to us through his incarnation in the person of Jesus. While some think there are many ways to get to God, Jesus tells us that the only way we can know God is by knowing him. Therefore, if we want to know God today we can only know him through faith in Jesus.
Having said this, Jesus continues on and tells his disciples, “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. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (Jn. 14:12-14). Here Jesus is speaking directly to his disciples, but what he says also applies to the church today. And what applies to us is that if we have faith in Jesus and are united to him by faith, the good stuff we do as a church will be as if Jesus is doing those things, because, “whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do.”
This means that we are a people who get to participate with Jesus in bringing mercy, healing, peace, and justice to the world around us so that everyone we encounter might flourish. That’s our calling. As followers of Jesus this is our job. No matter our actual vocation, our primary job is to bring things of life and flourishing to those around us in everything that we do. And when we do that, it is as if Jesus himself is doing it through us. Pretty amazing.
Continuing the conversation at home
Ask your kids this week how they think we get to God. If it helps, you can say, “Pastor Tim told me to ask you how you think you can gain access to God.” See what they say. Use this as an opportunity not just to teach them but to invite dialogue. If they say, “Jesus,” ask them how they know that. If they suggest we can get to God through other means, ask them why they think that, and invite them to test their understanding of God against what they read and hear from the Bible, since the Bible tells us how God has revealed himself to us. By simply asking them this same question we talked about in Youth, you are reinforcing the things they heard and are inviting them to make their answers their own.