Sermons

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Many of us have spent time with people who were living their last days. We have had conversations with them about the meaning of life, about the life lived and about to be completed. We have heard the advice of people who have lived full lives and want to hand down their accumulated wisdom to those whom they loved. These are valuable moments - the time when a person concludes one part of the spiritual journey and prepares to embark upon another. Somehow, these conversations seem more poignant, more urgent, and more important than other conversations. We do not take them for granted.

Clearly, Jesus was aware that he was living his last days when he spoke the words of today’s Gospel. It comes from a section of John called the Farewell Discourse and it contains the accumulated wisdom of Jesus that he sought to hand on to his beloved disciples. These chapters are a meditation, almost like a love-letter to his disciples, imparting to them all that they would need to know in order to live without him.

Today’s reading contains the first few verses of this Farewell Discourse. They are profound words that have brought comfort to countless people throughout the ages. That is why it is the most popular funeral Gospel. Jesus assures his disciples, and by extension, you and me, that there is a place for us in the Kingdom of God. He also tells us that faith in Jesus and adherence to his teachings is all that is necessary for salvation: “I am the way, the truth and the life,” he says. Jesus makes it clear to his disciples that a relationship with God comes through faith in him.

These words, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” are important. Almost everyday we hear people telling us how to find peace, how to enjoy spiritual enlightenment, or how to become more self-actualized. We spend a great deal of money and expend a lot of energy searching for the right path. We have the choice of many “ways” that make claims that often lead to disappointment or disillusion. Even the church, the institution that claims to have “the way” often disappoints. The church is not the way. At its best, the church teaches the way and supports those who seek to follow the way. The words of Jesus remind us that the answer really is quite simple. Jesus is the way. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the life that each of us seeks.

How do translate these words into something tangible that transforms our lives and takes us to that place of spiritual peace that we all so desperately seek? How does the proclamation that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life help us in our spiritual journeys?

The conviction that Jesus is the way means that we need no longer listen to the cacophony of voices that push and pull us all over the spiritual map. We can focus our energies on following Jesus to the ultimate destination – a relationship with God. Accepting that Jesus is the way is the entry point to a wonderful journey that takes us through the trials and tribulations of life. It provides us with an abiding peace even in the midst of the worst that this world can throw at us.

The twentieth century poet W. H. Auden wrote a Christmas oratorio entitled, For the Time Being. In that oratorio is a brief poem that expresses with great imagery the spiritual journey. His poem now serves as the text for a hymn that appears in The Hymnal 1982 as number 463, entitled “He is the Way.” The three stanzas of this poem interpret the three parts of Jesus’ comment, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

The first goes like this: “He is the Way. Follow him through the Land of Unlikeness; you will see rare beasts and have unique adventures.” I love these words. Anyone who has traveled the spiritual path for any length of time will tell you to expect the unexpected. The rare beasts and unique adventures are everywhere. They make the journey exciting. Just when we think that we have seen it all, we experience something new. Just when we think that we have made it through the “valley of the shadow of death,” to borrow from the psalmist, we confront another challenge, another opportunity to grow and to experience God in new and fresh ways. Auden urges us to follow Jesus who is the way.

The second of Auden’s stanzas says: “He is the Truth. Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety; you will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.” In the midst of our anxiety we find that Jesus is the Truth, the unchanging and ever abiding one who comforts even the most troubled heart or mind. Auden urges us to seek Jesus who is the truth.

The third contains these words: “He is the Life. Love him in the World of the Flesh: and at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.” The meaning of these words is obscure but I take them to be a reflection of Auden’s incarnational theology. We love Christ by loving the world that he created and for which he died. Jesus is the life who died that we might have eternal life.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. This means that we follow him who is the way, we seek him who is the truth, and we love him who is the life. Following, seeking, and loving are the actions that will enable us to travel the spiritual path. We can live with the assurance that our relationship with God through Jesus Christ will never end, that Jesus will never leave us, and that Jesus will empower us to live the lives that God intends for us to live. Amen.