A Troubling Verse
Until you need it.
I woke up one day recently with a burden; a hollow empty feeling; the kind that tells me I am going nowhere; just treading water.
Then Jesus’s words came to me, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
So, after getting dressed, and because it was on a weekend, I sat down to see if I could figure out why this particular passage was the one to pop into my head on such a low-mood day.
Jesus said to [Thomas his disciple], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6 (ESV)
I am aware this particular verse is a stumbling block to many who claim there are many ways to God. It seems too judgmental.
I understand the sentiment. It seems to be a cryptic verse open to a lot of interpretation, but I don’t think this is the case.
I believe Jesus’s claim has an order to it.
The idea of Way comes before Truth and all of it ends with Life.
Let’s look first at Way. He doesn’t just point out the path or walk with me and talk with me like the old song says, he claims to be the entire journey.
Crazy people, narcissists, and liars can also make this claim, but they of course would not be telling the truth — which brings us to Jesus’s second claim. He is the truth.
Of course difficult paths lead us to doubt. He never said his way would be easy. What he is saying is that he is the only True way to his Father.
Thirdly, this way is not a temporary solution to a bad day sort of problem. It is a way of Life and it leads into abundant living.
One final thought.
Elsewhere in Scripture we are told that it is Jesus’s death on a cross that opens our access to heaven; that, in fact, he died in our place. Jesus’s death on a cross followed by his bodily resurrection three days later are what Jesus is referring to when claiming to be the only way, truth, and life.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
1 John 4:9 (ESV)
