Gospel for this Sunday: John 14:1-14 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
This Sunday’s Gospel is one of the most well known and well loved passages in John’s Gospel. The scene is back on Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus died. It is part of the long discourse or talk Jesus had with his disciples, following the Last Supper, and also following the foot-washing -- when Jesus gave his disciples (back then, and you and me today) his example of loving service.
Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.
So Jesus calls us to trust that there is a dwelling place prepared for you and me, with him, in heaven.
A word about the use of the word “Father” for God.
In traditional classic Christian theology, God is not male. The Book of Genesis states that God created men and women in the image and likeness of God.
I believe Jesus – and then the New Testament writers – use the very human word “father” as a sign of the relationship between Jesus and one he called “Father.” As someone who is both a son and a father I am fully aware of how human and fallible the word is – but I am also aware of the power of the relationships our human words “father” or “mother” or “spouse” or “lover” describe.
Why can’t Jesus just say “God.” Well, as the early church found thinking about exactly this, Jesus was both truly human and divine Son of God. Our picture of “God” includes both what Jesus was getting at using the name Father, and also – in addition – Jesus himself (part of the meaning of this passage).
Well then, we could, theoretically, in this kind of study, make up a word to substitute for “father” – perhaps a long German-style “The-One-with-whom-Jesus-has-a-relationship-at-the-heart-of-God.”
But maybe it is better to stick with the human word, remembering its humanness and remembering it is a sign.
In all four Gospels, Jesus has sense of relationship with the one he called Father. Twice there is a record in the New Testament of his use of the Aramaic familiar word “abba” – our “daddy” or “papa”. I was walking along Michigan Avenue one day, and happened to be near a family, and couldn’t help but hear a young man – college age? – call his dad “abba”. A sign of the intimacy of the relationship between Jesus and the one he addressed in such familiar loving terms. The great scholar Joachim Jeremias drew out this use of ”abba.”
Jesus invites us into that intimacy by giving us the word “Father” to use in our own prayers. By giving us the Lord’s Prayer. And also remember the Eucharist is a prayer addressed to the Father, in the Name of Jesus the Son.
“if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
Where he is, we will be – for me this is the wonderful definition of heaven.
“And you know the way to the place where I am going."
Thomas is the one who speaks up. So in chapter 11 he spoke up to say let’s go to Jerusalem with Jesus and die with him. So he doubted in the Easter story. And now he asks this great question. May we make the question – and Jesus’ answer – our own: :
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
One of the seven “I am” statements.
“No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Except through the self-giving love we see in Jesus.
“ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
A major theme in John’s Gospel is that we cannot see God, and God sent Jesus so we might see in him what God is like.
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
What we see in Jesus is that the primary characteristic of God’s nature is self-giving love.
“How can you say, `Show us the Father'? 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; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it."
Anything that accords with the Father’s will. Anything of love.
The Bible text of the Gospel lesson is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.
(Raymond Webster)
