Acts 7: 55–60; Psalm 31: 1–5, 15–16; I Peter 2: 2–10; John
14: 1–14
This is a homily by
Fr. Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon on Sunday,
May 14, 2017.
(Homily text: John 14: 1–14)
Let’s
approach the key statement in our appointed Gospel text for this morning,
Jesus’ statement which says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one
comes to the Father except through me,” working from the statement itself
backward into the question which prompted the answer, and then backward into
Jesus’ opening statement which prompted the question.
Jesus’
pronouncement is directly linked to the question which was posed by the disciple
Thomas, who said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know
the way?” Notice Thomas’ use of the word “way” and Jesus’ response, which
begins with the same word.
Now,
working backward, we find that Jesus has begun to tell His disciples that He is
about to leave them. He describes His destination as a place to which He is
going, in order to prepare His followers a place where they might dwell with
Him. He describes his departure and the destination of his departure this way: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling
places. 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, you may be also. And you know the way
to the place where I am going.” (Verses two through four.)
This
morning’s passage falls within a large chunk of the Fourth Gospel, for the
writer devotes all of chapters thirteen through seventeen to Jesus’ farewell
discourse, which is set within the context of the Last Supper. Seen from this
perspective, what Jesus is doing in these four chapters is to prepare His
disciples for His death and burial, for His rising to new life again, and for
the work which will lie ahead of this main group of followers once He has
ascended to the Father.
So
Jesus’ statement about going to prepare a place for His followers, in order
that they may be where He is going, and the statement that, once He is gone, He
will return to take His followers to the place that He has prepared, fits
within the chain of events that unfolds on Good Friday, Easter Sunday the
Ascension, and the Pentecost event.
In
this chain of events, Jesus departs from His followers on Good Friday as He
dies on the cross, but returns to them on Easter Sunday in a risen state, a
state which enables Him to pass through locked doors and to be in many places
without the limitations of a normal state of being. It is as if He is able to
be many places, almost instantaneously. Then, He ascends to the Father forty
days after Easter. The process is complete when, ten days after that, the Holy
Spirit is poured out on His followers, enabling them to go out into the world
proclaiming the Good News of God, made known in Jesus Christ.
This
chain of events is remarkable. In it, Christians see God at work, revealing
Himself to humankind. Notice Jesus’ statement which reads, “Whoever has seen me
has seen the Father.” (Verse nine.) God reveals Himself to be the author of
life, and the giver of new life. Jesus’ resurrection assures us of two
things: 1) That God has the power over life and death,
and 2) That this power guarantees new life to those who ask for it.
So
this means that the Father can not only create us, but He can re-create us,
too. The new life that the Father offers through the Son is a new and intimate
relationship which begins when we come to faith, depending on the reality of
Jesus’ resurrection, for that event is the event which changes everything. And
this new relationship follows us once this life is over and done with,
extending into eternity.
So
Jesus is, by Christian proclamation, the way, for His victory over death
assures us that He has opened the door to the Father, that we might enter it,
finding ourselves in a new and wonderful relationship which changes our
perspective on the lives we live now, and on the life we will live in eternity.
We
should back up for a moment and look at the word “reveals”, which was used to
describe everything connected with Jesus Christ’s ministry and work.
The
Christian claim is a claim to the special
revelation[1]
made known to us in Jesus Christ. Christians come to believe that, in Jesus
Christ, God the Father is most clearly revealed in a way and in a manner that
is unique.
It
seems especially important to remember the Christian claim to the revelation
made known in Christ as it arose in the Greco-Roman world of the first century.
The religious landscape of those times was made up of varying religious systems
of belief and practice. Some were eastern mystery religious which had been
brought into the Roman Empire by traders, to cite one example. Other systems
were based on the Greek (and then the Roman) understandings of multiple gods
and goddesses, whose intentions toward humankind weren’t always positive. And,
of course, there was first century Judaism, out of which Christian beliefs
arose.
Out
of this variety of religious expression, Christians held to the belief that, in
Christ, God had revealed Himself to a degree which provided the foundation for a
reliable faith by accepting the work that Jesus Christ had accomplished. These
early Christians maintained this belief in a positive way, offering the rest of
the world the idea that they had found something unique and wonderful. In so
doing, they offered others the opportunity to come into this unique
relationship, too, not using the uniqueness of Christian understanding as a
weapon to denigrate other ways of being.
This
last point is an essential one to hold in mind as we make our way into a world
in which there is a variety of religious expression. For we can use Jesus’
statement that He is, “the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the
Father except through me,” as a way of denigrating others, forcing them into a
relationship with Christ.
The
early Church’s witness is of an entirely different kind. We could characterize
it this way: They might have said, “In Christ, we’ve found a wonderful treasure
which has changed our lives, and we invite you to discover that treasure for
yourself.”
May this
way of offering the riches of Christ be our way of offering those riches to the
world around us.
AMEN.
[1] Theologians use the terms “general
revelation” and “special revelation” to describe the ways that God reveals
Himself. Different religions around the world possess “general revelation” to
some degree or another. An example of “general revelation” would be the idea
that the created order is the result of a Creator being who deliberately orders
the world we live in according to a definite plan. “Special revelation” is that
revealing process we see in Jesus Christ.
