Mid-Lent 1
John
14:1-10
3/4/20
Last week I spent several days
having a computer voice tell me what to do, and I was careful to do everything
it said. Amy, Timothy and I were driving
around the El Paso area – a place we had never been before and knew nothing
about. Amy is our family navigator, but
in this case it meant that she had pulled up directions on her phone and Google
Maps was running the show. She was giving me clarification about the directions
the phone provided, and also advanced warning about what we would be doing.
It’s hard to believe that there was
a time when you had to use a map to figure out how to get somewhere. We no longer even need special navigation
devices. Instead every smart phone has
GPS capability and several map options that will provide the route to a
destination, and then also guide us there.
We live at a time when we never have to wonder about the way to get
somewhere.
In our text tonight, the disciples
have no idea about where Jesus is going, or how to get there. And it turns out that even if they had our
technology, it would have been of no assistance. Though they do not yet understand, Jesus
tells them that they already know the way because they know him. And because
they know Jesus, they also know the Father.
Our text tonight is from the
beginning of what is often called Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse.” At the end of chapter thirteen the Last
Supper has just ended, and on the night when he was betrayed, Jesus and the
disciples start to make their way to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus begins to talk to the disciples and his
words stretch from chapter fourteen to chapter seventeen. This is the last
extensive teaching that Jesus did before he died, and so during this season of
Lent as we prepare for Holy Week, our Lord’s words are a fitting subject for
our consideration.
When Jesus and the disciples had gone out he began to
speak about his coming death as he said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified,
and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will
also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.” And then he added,
“Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and
just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going
you cannot come.’”
This
statement confused and alarmed Peter who said, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus
answered him, "Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but
you will follow afterward.” Peter wanted to know why he couldn’t follow Jesus
now. After all, he declared that he would lay down his life for the Lord. Yet
Jesus told him that instead, before the rooster crowed he would deny Jesus
three times.
The
prospect of Jesus leaving them was obviously very disturbing for the
disciples. So at the beginning of our
text Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in
God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If
it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for
you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will
take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know
the way to where I am going.”
Jesus said he was going away to
prepare a place for the disciples.
However, he also promised that he would come again and take them to
himself, so that they would be with the Lord. And he assured them that they
already knew the way to where he was going.
Thomas was utterly baffled by this
and said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the
way?” Jesus replied, “I am the way,
and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me.” In this statement by Jesus
we begin to understand that the destination is not so much a place, but a
person. The “destination” is eternal
life with the Father. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life because of what
he is about to do. By his death on the cross he will be the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world. By his
resurrection from the dead he will grant life that conquers death, and he will
be the guarantee of eternal life for all who believe in him.
Our Lord then added, “If you had
known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do
know him and have seen him.” Philip
couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying and so he said, “Lord, show us
the Father, and it is enough for us.”
For Jesus, this demonstrated the
fact that Philip truly did not yet understand who he was. Jesus said to him,
“Have I been with you
so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen
the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to
you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me
does his works.”
In our text, Philip asks for a
direct revelation of the Father. Martin
Luther famously identified this request as being an example of the theology of
glory. Philip wants to see the Father
directly. Yet that is not how God
works. Instead, God reveals himself in
ways that look the opposite of the glorious. He works in the way of the cross.
We saw this at Christmas as we
celebrated the incarnation of the Son of God.
In the first chapter of this Gospel John writes about Son of God – the
Word: “And the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
And then he adds, “No
one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has
made him known.”
God
the Father reveals himself in the flesh of the incarnate Son of God. This is
God, but it is also God hidden and indirect.
And now Jesus prepares to go to the cross. He goes to carry out the
saving action for us. As Jesus said
earlier, “And the bread that
I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Jesus has spoken the words of the Father, and
now he will carry out the work the Father had given him to do.
God revealed
in the flesh. God revealed in flesh
nailed to a cross. This is how God
works. And this is not what we want. We
want to see God directly, and not in a way that requires faith. We want something that looks mighty, and not
like suffering, weakness and failure.
Because you
see, the way of the cross is not simply an explanation of how God worked to
save us. It is a description of how God
works in general. The cross is the pattern by which God continues to work in
our world and lives. It describes the
preaching of the Word and all of the Means of Grace which are in no way
impressive to the world. It describes
the way that God allows hardships to enter our lives, because they crucify the
old Adam and force us to turn to God in faith. It describes the way God’s
Church experiences persecution and suffering.
Jesus speaks
these words as he is about to die on the cross.
But as he says in our text, “Do you not believe
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to
you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me
does his works.” The cross looks like
failure, but in fact it is God the Father’s work carried out by Jesus to give
us forgiveness and life. Because Jesus gives his flesh into death on the cross,
the way to life with God is now open. And because he will rise from the dead on
Easter he is the source of eternal life.
We prepare during Lent to observe
these events once again – the events of Holy Week and Easter. In remembering
them we see not only that the cross was the means by which Jesus provided
himself as the way to the Father. We also see that the cross in our own life is
not the absence of God. Instead, it is
God at work to draw us to himself. It is
God at work to strengthen us in faith as we must believe and trust in him. We
know this, because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. And in Jesus, we see the Father’s loving work
to save us.
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