No Other Way ( for paper) June 23

No Other Way June 1 for paper.                     Rev. Terry Goerz, Redeemer Lutheran Church

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ……. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  John 14: 1–3, 6

Jesus told His disciples on the eve of His death that He was going to prepare a place for them in His Father’s home. He would come again and take them along, so that they would be where He is. Jesus was speaking of His death, resurrection, and ascension by which He took our humanity through death to resurrection to glory. That was the way, the only way to come to the place that is truly “home.” “You know the way where I am going,” Jesus said.

But the disciples didn’t know the way. Well, they knew it, because Jesus had taught them, but they refused to believe it. They didn’t want to hear it. They were like we are: death-deniers, not willing to see that the only way to eternal life is to die and rise. There is no way to improve this humanity of ours, not by genetic engineering or by a million years of evolution, if such a thing were possible. Sin is inherent in humanity, and therefore so is Death. If Sin and Death are going to be destroyed, they must be destroyed in the flesh. Our human flesh.

This is where Jesus comes in. He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” He stands uniquely between the Creator and the creature, between the Father and fallen humanity. He stands in the breach as the only Mediator between God and humanity. Because His flesh died, our flesh is redeemed. Because His flesh died, Sin is put to death, Death is destroyed, and the Law of God is fulfilled by His sinless life and death. There is no other man who can claim to be God and not be lying. There is no other man who can mediate between God and Man and who can reconcile a fallen world to the Father. There is no one in this world other than Jesus who embodies in His body Truth and Life. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus!

Jesus doesn’t simply speak the truth, He IS the Truth. We live in an age where truth is malleable, a wax nose, a plastic, elastic concept that can be bent around our whims and wishes. We no longer believe in truth in any absolute sense, as though something could be true in itself. For our age, truth is all relative. Today what is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me. It’s all really a matter of opinion, which is why we decide what is true by straw polls and votes. And, of course, the majority is always right,   …    right?

Jesus is the Truth. The absolute Truth. The Truth beyond which there is no further truth, and the Truth to which all truths point. He is Truth enfleshed in our humanity. There is nothing false in Him. He is the antidote to the Lie that poisoned our humanity and drove us from our true home into the wilderness of Sin and Death. He is the Truth of God’s love for the world, His passion to save, His mercy toward sinners.

Jesus is the Life. He is the creator of life and He Himself is Life. His words are Spirit and they are Life. He is the Life that enlivens every living thing. He is the Life that Death itself cannot overcome. Jesus goes into Death and Death must surrender the spoils. It takes God in the Flesh to do this. No one else can. And so there is no other Way but Jesus who is the Way. There is no other door that leads to life with God than the narrow door of His death and resurrection. There is no other Truth than the words of truth that come from Jesus. You hear the words of the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and in hearing you are set on the Way, the Truth is revealed to you, and you have Life.

Let not your hearts be troubled.    …   Is your heart troubled? By your past, by your present, by your future? By your sins, your failings, your fear of death? Whatever the cause of the trouble, whatever the anxiety or terror or fear, trust the Father, trust Jesus His Son. Jesus has gone the way of death and resurrection to glory and has brought you along with Him in His humanity. You are baptized. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s treasured possession. You are a part of the body of Christ, you are a member of the household of God, you are a priest in the royal priesthood of Jesus. He’s gone to prepare a place for you. He will raise you from the dead on the Last Day so that where He is you also will be. In Him you are already there.

In Jesus, you are never lost, but always found. In Jesus, you are never dead, but always alive. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life. He and no other. Trust Him.

Blessings