“I am the way,
and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me…”
Among all the sayings of Jesus, this is
perhaps the best known, and often the most quoted. But the way in which it is often quoted lacks
something.
I say that because this is a word of
Jesus that the Church has often thrown around with a spirit of
condemnation. Too often the Church has
used this to separate persons in camps of “the saved” and “the damned.”
But note here that it is Jesus who is
the way, not the Church! As was said
even in the earliest times of the Church, “there may be salvation outside of
the Church, but never outside Christ.”
And when the Church says this, then the next thing that must be said is that
it is always and only Christ who determines who shall be saved through him and
brought into the Kingdom of God.
This should be something that we who
are inside the Church embrace fondly. I
say that because it applies equally to us.
We can get lost easily, and quickly be like the disciples who in this
Gospel admit that they don’t know how to get where Jesus wants us to go. Jesus does not expect us to find our way to
the Kingdom on our own. Nor does he
expect that of anyone else. When Jesus
says, “Do not let your heart be troubled,” in this context, he is reminding us
that he will show us the way home. And
as we journey at his direction, we will find again and again that Jesus is directing
many others along the way to the Kingdom of God. He knows the way, for he is the way. He knows the truth, for he is the embodiment of
all truth. He knows life, for he is the
only one to take on human flesh who is immortal. All this is true, for Jesus is God in our
midst! And he has promised that he will
be God in our midst forever.
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