May 3, 2026

My friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

As a preacher, it’s tempting this morning to preach on stoning.  Or what the Gospel might mean when Jesus tells us that those who believe in him will do even greater works than he does.  Or to wonder about what Peter means in his letter when he writes about spiritual milk.  Or anything except the third rail that shows up in our Gospel passage today.  But it turns out I’m a third rail kind of guy….

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  These two verses give many of us heartburn.  It’s a third rail for a reason.  Jesus’ words here are often used as a threat – that people need to get with the program and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior if they want to get their ticket punched for heaven.

And we might wonder why a God whose mansion has many rooms might not have a room for everyone.  It might make us wonder about our neighbors, or friends, or loved ones who aren’t Christian.  It might make us wonder why the God who is so big comes across looking like the Grinch, with a heart two sizes too small.

And I’ll be honest.  I’ve really struggled with this sermon over the last two weeks.  I’ve started and ripped this up more times than I care to admit.  Because it’s hard not to read these verses in a way that makes the God of Love seem so small.  But in all my praying and reflecting, I’ve come to think that the challenge with these verses is that we want to rip them out of their context.  We’re tempted to look at them by themselves and imagine Jesus saying something along the lines of “hey guys, we’re starting a new religion here, and it’s the only way to avoid hell.”  Or – even more harmfully, we find some humans who use to these verses say to other humans – “you need to believe in the same Christianity I do, or else.”  And I think all that does violence to the spirit of what Jesus is saying.

So today I want to give us a different way to think about this.  To put Jesus words into the larger context of the Good News.  I want us to think about what Jesus means when he calls himself the way, the truth, and the life.

Jesus isn’t speaking these words into a vacuum.  He’s at the last supper.  He’s just predicted that one of his followers will betray him, and that Peter will deny him.  He’s told the disciples that he’ll be leaving and going to a place where they cannot come.

Imagine how frightened the disciples must be.  Their anxiety is sky-high.  Jesus isn’t giving them words of hope and comfort.  He seems to be predicting the ruin of everything they’ve worked for.  Everything they’ve hoped for.

Jesus responds to the disciples’ anxiety by assuring them that they know the way to the place where he is going.  And then Thomas.  Oh, Thomas.  We call him the doubter – but really, he’s the one who’s brave enough to admit that he has no clue.  Thomas says “Lord, we don’t have any idea where you’re going.  How could we possibly know the way?”  Thomas wants a road map.  He wants GPS directions.  In the midst of anxiety, he wants certainty.  I think we can all relate.

And this is where Jesus says those words: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Not as a claim to be exclusive.  But as a promise – as a word of comfort to his disciples in a frightening evening where everything is going to go horribly wrong.

Jesus assures his disciples that he himself is all they need to reach God.  There’s no need to panic.  There’s no need to search desperately for a secret map.  Why?  Because Jesus has spent three years making the Father known to the world.  That has been his mission from the beginning.  “No one has ever seen God”, the eloquent poetry that begins John’s Gospel tells us.  “It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known”.[1]

Through his words, Jesus tells people what God is like.  Through his actions, Jesus shows people what God is like.  In his very self, Jesus is what God is like.  In all those things, Jesus reveals to us the very person and character of God.  If we want to know who God is – if we want to be with God – we need look no further than Jesus.  Whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father.  When we come to Jesus, we come to the Father.  They are inseparable.

And how do we experience Jesus?  We experience Jesus like the disciples did in John’s Gospel.  In the stories of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana.  Healing the sick like the paralyzed man at Bethesda and the man born blind.  Feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and two fishes.  Walking on the water.  Raising Lazarus from the dead.  Washing the feet of his disciples.  We even experience Jesus entering Jerusalem and walking inevitably to suffering and the cross.

In these stories, Jesus lives.  He feeds the hungry.  He brings healing and peace.  He offers humble service.  He suffers betrayal and humiliation.  He even dies.  In all this, Jesus shows us that this is who God is.  But Jesus does not allow death to have the last word.  Because that is who God is, too. 

This is what it means to be the way, the truth and the life.  If we want to come to the Father, then we need to be where Jesus is – because he has shown us that is where the Father is.  We need to be in the places where the hungry are fed.  In the places where healing and peace are present and reconciliation and justice bloom.  In the places where humble service is offered to the neighbor.  And yes, even in those places where there is humiliation and betrayal and death.  Because anyone – anyone – walking in those places will encounter the living God whose mansion has room enough for all.  Anyone who comes to those places will come to the Father whose heart is not two sizes too small, but bigger than we can ever imagine.

Amen.

[1] John 1:18 - NRSV