Is Jesus the Way?

by Kelvin Dyck
February 14, 2010 (St. Valentine’s Day)

Text: John 14: 1-9a; Psalm 1
Theme: Is Jesus the Way? How is Jesus the Way.

Introduction

Jesus said to him: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

In today’s world this sentence sounds rather politically incorrect. It smacks of exclusivity, arrogance, and elitism. It sounds intolerant, closed-minded, outdated, and, worst of all, ‘fundamentalist.’

Todd Johnson, writing for the Pew Forum on Christianity in Global Context: Trends and Statistics, says that the last century has seen the geographical centre gravity of Christianity move from Europe and North America to Latin America, Africa and Asia. In 1900 80% of Christians lived in the so-called West, but by 2005, that had dropped to less than 40%. At this rate, by 2050 this percentage will fall below 30%.

The implications are significant. There will be more and more people in North America who have a different spiritual heritage living among us. There will be greater influences and challenges to the particularities of Christian faith as we have come to know them. Not only will our status as a majority be challenged but so will our theologies. Christine Sine suggests, “What many of us in Western cultures are oblivious to is that much of our theology has been shaped by a Eurocentric worldview that arises from the place of power and privilege that our cultures have held. Our theology has thus been shaped more by our positions of privilege than by the gospel message.” In our post-colonial post Eurocentric Christian world, we traditionalists need to become listeners and learners from those who come from other cultures. The great British missiologist and missionary to India, Lesslie Newbigin wrote that “The fact that Jesus is much more that, much greater than, our culture-bound vision of him can only come home to us through the witness of those who see him through other eyes.” (Foolishness to the Greeks)

With respect to the challenge to the particularities of our faith and the claims we have accepted as axiomatic for so long, we will also be confronted by many who argue for a more generic approach to religion and spirituality. Exclusivity is seen as a tribal characteristic; we need to be more cosmopolitan. We will see a growing recognition among some Christians that God is to be found outside the boundaries of Christian faith as well as inside. We will see a greater movement among some groups to a more fundamentalist position which feels safer and more secure and an increased tendency toward conflict and misunderstanding with those who disagree. In our own community we have people moving in who have Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Muslim backgrounds and who are still practicing. With many of the self-help books employing aspects of different religions as tools or practices toward better physical and emotional health, the comfort level of the general public with other religious ideas has increased dramatically.

To sum up the growing mood of our western culture:

• Philosophically, you can believe anything, as long as you do not claim it to be true.
• Morally, you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim that it is a ‘better’ way.
• Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you don’t bring Jesus Christ into it. (Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods) Or let me qualify that somewhat, You can say anything you want, so long as you don’t make Jesus exclusively Christian.

And so we come to the verse before us: “Jesus said to him (Thomas): I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through me.”

 Is Jesus the Way and How is Jesus the Way?

The word “way” is a word rich in meaning. ‘Way’ connotes movement, process and direction. ‘Way’ is a simple noun designating a road or path that leads to a destination. But then, the word ‘way’ fragments in a multitude of ‘ways’ of being the ‘way’, metaphorically illustrating the rich and varied field of meaning which this word has come to enjoy. For example, ‘way’ can suggest ‘by foot or bicycle or car’; but also ‘by speech, by actions’, etc, or the manner in which we feel, eat or sleep, etc.

Both Old and New Testaments, in both Hebrew and Greek, use the word “way” to describe the life of righteousness under God. In Psalm 1 the way of righteousness is the life lived in an obedient relation to God. The way of the ungodly is described as disobedience leading to death. In the Sermon of the Mount, this metaphor is developed by describing the easy road as the way leading to death and the narrow, demanding road issuing in life itself.

The early church was described in terms of people following “the way.” Six times in Acts, Luke describes the church as “the way” perhaps most famously in 24:14, 22, in Paul’s speech to Felix, that “this I admit to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our ancestors…”

That Jesus is the way seems incontrovertible according to Scripture. But the way Jesus is the way is less straight forward. “Jesus is the Way” is less a philosophical proposition then a way of life or a way of seeing. True, Jesus is the way of salvation but not necessarily tied to individualistic piety.

In today’s message, I should like to focus on three ways in which Jesus is the way.

1. Jesus as the Way of Discipleship

In the first story about Jesus, Mark describes Jesus as announcing the presence of the kingdom of God. He then issues three commands: Repent, believe, and follow me. “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” (Mark 1: 14-17)  

“Repent” requires a change of direction. “Believe” requires a change of orientation, a change to a new, personal, and trusting relationship in God. “Follow me” requires a changed lifestyle, defined, structured and embodied in the One who calls.

Eugene Peterson says it very well: “To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us. To follow Jesus means picking up rhythms and ways of doing things that are often unsaid but always derivative from Jesus, formed by the influence of Jesus. To follow Jesus means that we can’t separate what Jesus is saying from what Jesus is doing and the way that he is doing it. To follow Jesus is as much, or even more, about feet as it is about ears and eyes.” (The Jesus Way)

And so the first way that Jesus is the way is that of “the way of Discipleship.” Jesus is the way because he calls us to follow him and to do that, we must needs repent (change direction) and believe (engage in a trusting personal relationship).

2. Jesus as the Way to the Father

The second way that Jesus is the way is stated plainly in John 14:6. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus. Jesus is the way to God the Father. Others may know God or some version of God. But as John records Jesus as saying, “to know God as Father one must go through the Son.”

Scripture records that even those without the Good News have enough knowledge and evidence to know God. Paul says “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse ; for though they knew God they did not honor him as God or  give thanks to him…” (Rom. 1:19-21)

Now note what it says and what it does not say. It says that Jesus is the way to the Father. It does not say that Christianity is the way to the Father. Frequently, people confuse the Christian religion, perhaps techniques or practices, or even the various rituals and creeds and confessions, with Jesus. The religious dimensions of Jesus worship can be different from the person of Jesus. John records Jesus as saying that if we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father. In the person of Jesus we recognize God as our Father and our own identity as God’s adopted children. As such we are privileged to experience life as children of God. The tender, empowering, gentle, admonishing, gracious love of God is the gift we recognize as the children of God.

The way to God the Father is the way of Jesus Christ. This personal dimension is what I believe many look for in the human experience. Some go so far as to look for it in ritual, in meditation, or in ascetic practices. While those may be significant and even positive in the lives of many, they cannot do not display the Father.

In his book The Return of the Prodigal, Henry Nouwen talks about the need for us as humans to go to the Father and experience the embrace and the peace of the Father’s love and acceptance. This is what I think differentiates Christian from other perspectives. This is the personal dimension of knowing and being known by an Other. Jesus says ‘I am the way’ not ‘this is the way.’ He also says that ‘through me, you know the Father.’ Jesus is the way to the Father.

3. Jesus as the Way to Understand History

Finally, Jesus is the way because the grand narrative of Scripture describes history as being centred in Jesus Christ, God incarnate in the world. Salvation, that great act of God in reconciling the world back to himself, is accomplished through the One foretold in the Prophets, witnessed to by the apostles as having lived among us as one of us, died on our behalf and rose again as a demonstration by God that nothing can separate us from God’s love and who has promised to restore creation at the end of time. Jesus stands at the centre of the Christian view of history and time.

Through Jesus, God has chosen to save the world. That is what the Scriptures are all about. As Paul writes, “God was in Christ reconciling the world.” And so Christ is the way of creation back to God and God’s way back to creation. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus whose legacy exists in a few fragments which themselves only hold a few aphorisms, said the “the way up and the way down are the same way.” In the person of Jesus, this is true. Yes, Jesus is the way to God the Father, but Jesus is also the way of the Father to us. Through Jesus we know we are loved and accepted, healed and forgiven, taught to live lives of gratitude and love for others, generosity, sacrifice and joy. The Christian Scriptures teach that in Jesus Christ, God reconciles all of creation back to himself. The hope of eternal life in the presence of God the Father is what awaits us.

Conclusion

So how do we speak of this? Is this arrogance? Is this true? This is the conviction of the biblical writers. They write out of their experience and their faith. Their experience of the risen Lord gave them the assurance that what Jesus had taught them was indeed true. Because God raised Jesus from the dead, or as Paul stated, Christ has conquered death, the biblical writers were overwhelmingly convinced that Jesus’ statements about himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life; as the Bread of Life; as the Water of Life; as the Vine; as the Good Shepherd, were all to be believed. They could not write otherwise. It was living reality!

Some cautions for us in our reading are in order. Firstly, we can not say more than Scripture does. People may be kind and good and spiritual. God loves them too. We don’t know how God is working in their lives. But we know how God is working in ours. And that is to what we testify. God is love. Are there other ways? In Jesus, we have found this way. In Jesus, we have found the way. And the more deeply we immerse ourselves in the way of Jesus the more deeply we will understand its truth.

Secondly, we must continually open ourselves to the experience of Jesus in other cultures and other places. Our western experience of Christian faith is a form which has much to overcome. Too often we have treated faith as a series of propositions and arguments. There is no life in that. Other cultures understand far more deeply the significance of relationship, of the mystery of knowing deeply the ‘truthiness’ of authenticity and life. There is something for us too. We need to learn this as well.

Finally we need to be generous and listening to others even as God has been so with us. The demonstration of Jesus as the way now rests with those of us who seek to follow Jesus the way. We can invite them along on this journey and together journey to see the Father.  Amen.

Back to Top