The Way, The Truth, The Life

John 14:1-14New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Comforts His Disciples

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Jesus the Way to the Father

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Have you ever done something and then regretted it later?  Kind of a silly question to ask to a group of church going folk.  Isn’t that why we are here?  That is kind of how I feel about the scripture for this morning.  I chose this scripture to preach on because I felt like I could adequately explain verse 6 in a brilliant manner “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  But the more I stewed on it, the explanation I was dreaming of was getting more and more difficult to put into words.  Some people find God through theology and pondering difficult questions.  Some people find God through worship.  Some people find God through nature.  Some people find God through storytelling.  I usually stay away from the theology side of things because the issues found there seem to divide more than unify.  To be honest, the group gathered this morning would not agree on every theological issue.... And I am perfectly ok with that but we are going to venture into the murky waters of theology for this morning.  Some are drawn to God through stories of children or farming or athletics and some are drawn in through theology.  I know this may not be everyone’s cup of tea so bear with me, we need to take time to feed the mind of all sorts of differing views.  

The focus of the message this morning will be on verse 6.  I have spent my  life thinking that this verse meant that Jesus was the only route to eternal life with God and I believe verse 6 helped me in that argument.  Verse 6 brings the question of “Whom did Christ die for?” into the forefront of Christian thought.  It appears that verse states very plainly that Jesus is the absolute only route to God “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  That is the trump card of all trump cards.  Once it's played, the discussion is over.  Some believing Christians would like to think there are many routes to God and Christianity is only one of them.  No doubt, hearing these quoted words of Jesus make that a difficult belief to adhere to and yet many still do.  When answering the question of “For whom did Christ die” we are left with a couple possibilities.  In order to know where you fall, I will have to take a little time to explain each one.  

The first option is the longest held option for those in the Calvinist tradition (which DoC are rooted) and it  is the doctrine of God’s distinguishing love.  Many believe that God graciously and unconditionally loves selected sinners from every family, nation, language and culture (the world) and gives his Son to deliver His people from their sins, while at the same time holds other sinners accountable for their sins.  In other words, God chooses to love many sinners but not all sinners.  One pastor summed it up by saying, “I love the person to whom you are married, but I don’t love your spouse like I love my spouse. I unconditionally love my bride.  I chose my wife.  I didn’t choose yours.”  Those who adhere to this philosophy typically believe that every sinner deserves nothing from God, so any sinner who receives God’s unconditional love, mercy and grace is one sinner more than the number of sinners who deserve it.  This belief system allows room for those difficult situations where we wonder if God really loves someone who has done horrendous and atrocious acts of violence.  We can put our mind at ease knowing that someone like that is not one of the elect whom God has chosen and allows us to distance God’s love and mercy and grace from those kind of people.  Or really, distance ourselves from any kind of people whom we disagree with.

The second option has caught more traction in modern times which is somewhat polarizing from the get-go.  Hopeful Universal Reconciliation is a doctrine of belief that states that God’s love abides upon each and every sinner to the same degree.  A big proponent of this doctrine is George McDonald who suggested that “the consuming fire of God’s love would eventually overcome sin and rebellion in every human being.”  He was hopeful that God wanted every human to be reconciled not just the elect.  Many writers were, and still are being, influenced by McDonald.  One such writer was C.S. Lewis who didn’t fully adapt this view but it did have an impact on his writings.  In Lewis’ book “The Great Divorce” the main character states, “it is possible that everyone will eventually be saved but we cannot know this with certainty.”  This doctrine and the writers who support it catch a lot of grief for being heretics (spreading “lies” about the church as if they were truths).  Lewis, McDonald, Young (the writer of “The Shack”) are looked at as heretics by some in the Christian tradition.  This doctrine makes it easier to apply God’s love to everyone.  It goes against the predestination of the elect that is a strongly held dogma of the church.  

There are different variations of these doctrines.  And as is often the case, I believe the most truthful answer is somewhere in the middle.  Now, you may believe something altogether different.  That’s fine.  I think it’s easy for people to be critical of my beliefs because I rarely draw a hard line anymore.  Don’t get me wrong I definitely used to.  I used to adhere to the thought that if “you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”  As I get older I begin to realize it’s not always that easy.  It may be easier for you to understand your relationship with God believing in the doctrine that God only saves a select few.  It may be easier for you to understand your relationship with God believing in the doctrine of a hopeful universal reconciliation.  It may be easier for you to understand your relationship with God if you completely avoid the issue altogether.  When it comes to God and everything that goes into having a relationship with Him, I do believe there are some undeniable truths and someday we'll all know what those are it’s just that our routes to figuring them out are all so different.  The worst part about math class growing up was showing our work.  I hated it.  I was good at math but didn’t always take the “taught way” to get the answer.  I could get the answers right but the work wrong and that upset me.  I know why the teachers do it so students aren’t cheating but I didn’t like it.  Maybe that is part of the reason that I hold to the belief that we are all looking for the answer and I believe everyone will find that answer someday but I also believe the work shown as part of the process will look very different en route to finding the correct answer.  

This morning our scripture also said “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?”  There are many different rooms within the same house: living room, bathroom, bedroom, pantry, kitchen, office, closet, dining room, mud room, etc.  These rooms all have a different function as they were put there for different reasons.  God’s house has many different rooms put there for many different reasons.  Jesus has prepared a place for you in one of them.  The route you take to figure out which one is your room will look very different than the route I take.  Amen.