SERMON
by Reverend Judith Alltree, delivered on Sunday May 22, 2011
at The Church of the Holy Spirit
JOHN 14:1–14
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
In a pluralistic society, it might be dangerous to make the statement: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Especially in Canada where we are so incredibly politically correct that we don’t want to appear in any way to be insulting anyone else’s culture or heritage, even and especially at the expense of our own cultural or religious heritage. This kind of statement might bring out the ire in someone who is not familiar with who Jesus is or what he is saying. But for Christians, and for Messianic Jews, and for those who hover on the edge of belief, the incarnation means that Jesus us not just the way to God, he is God. These are not meant to be fighting words, but a statement of fact.
Jesus is all-sufficient, because he is both God and human. To understand this, we have to start back at the beginning. Jesus was begotten of God, not conceived “in the way of men” as one very old translation of the passage says. He was given life by the power of the Holy Spirit through Mary, his human mother; therefore, Jesus is the human face of God on earth. If we accept this fact, we can then begin to understand what Jesus means when he says: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
For example: although I am a priest, and I can teach you about who Jesus is and what he does, you can’t come to the Father through me. I point the way; Jesus is both the path and the destination.
There are two characteristics that mark the relationship between Jesus and God: the first is the particular intimacy of it. The terms “Father” and “Son,” are not used to disclose gender—as our human language of God is analogous—but to describe a relationship that is unlike any other into which two persons freely enter, such as husband/wife, employer/employee, teacher/student. When we speak of Jesus’ relationship with God the language we use suggests that the very being of the Father is the being of the Son; there is a mutual “indwelling”—the Son is “in” the Father as the Father is “in” the Son.
The second characteristic of this unique relationship is equality – that is, Jesus’ equality with God. For example, the Pharisees and others in authority were always looking for ways to condemn Jesus. Their favourite was to accuse him of blasphemy because he “forgave sins” – something that, according to the Pharisees, only God was allowed to do. Jesus freely forgave the sins of others – and taught all his followers – then and now – to ask God to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. The gift of forgiveness, once believed to belong only to God, is now a gift given to us from God, through the death and resurrection of His Son.
Furthermore, the gift of forgiveness of sins is not limited to any one group of human beings, or a specific number diligently counted out and when the number is reached, all the rest are excluded, but is unlimited, by means of God’s infinite grace; for Christians this speaks to our baptism, which is the sign of our redemption and the symbol of our relationship with God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are part of the plan for the salvation of the world, not just this person or that group. We have all been saved. This is the promise. As John wrote at the end of his Gospel: “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31) “Believe in God, believe also in me… I am in the father the father is in me.” (John 14:1, 10) These are universal statements.
Jesus speaks about equality with God, something that no human that I am aware of can make a claim to. Jesus and God are in each other, from each other, part of each other. John also wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” (John 1:1-2) Jesus and God are unique to one another, in a way that no two beings are in the history of humankind. Jesus was “Begotten, not made; of one being with the Father, through whom all things were made…” (Nicene Creed)
Jesus not so patiently tried to explain to his disciple, Philip, when he asked Jesus to “show him” God: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” (John 14:10b-11a) Poor Philip: having spent three years traveling all over Palestine with Jesus, asked Jesus to show him God. I wonder what he thought he would see? When we peer at old family photos we look to see who got whose nose, eyes, chin or hairline. The family resemblance that we are looking for between Jesus and The Father can be found not in photographs or any other form of art, but in our hearts: these [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31) “Believe in God, believe also in me…I am in the father, the father is in me.” (John 14:1, 10)
In our pluralistic society we are also faced with the dangers of exclusivity. Did Jesus say that no one could believe in the Father unless they believe first in him? Is he saying that there are some people who are acceptable to God – and others who are not? No, he is absolutely not saying that there are some who are unacceptable to God. Everyone is acceptable – Jesus did not die on the Cross for the redemption of only part of the human race. In the words of the Eucharistic Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer service, Jesus: “made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world…” (p. 242, BAS) I see nothing exclusive about this; dying for “the sins of the whole world” doesn’t seem to leave anyone out.
Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) This is not a statement of exclusion but of logic. If Jesus is God incarnate, God’s being on earth, created by divine means in the body of a human female in order to be born “as one of us”, then it is absolutely logical, believing this, that no one could come to the Father except through the Son. The Son is the Father. They share a unique nature. Jesus’ death reconciled the whole world to God. And Jesus sent his disciples into the whole world to preach the Gospel – which they did and continue to do today.
We may be a pluralistic society, and we may be the most politically correct nation on earth – something I myself take no personal pride in – but what we can be proud of is that our Saviour, the Son of God, came for all people. And because of this, all the world is welcome to share in the celebration of eternal life with God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.