John 14:6 Jesus said to him*, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”
*He is speaking to Thomas because he had asked, “We do not know where you are going, how will we know the way?”
In the Gospel of John, the Lord’s Supper takes place in chapter 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17…in Chapter 13 Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, tells Peter that he(Peter) will deny him (Jesus) twice, and tells that he is to betrayed and after the Lord’s supper is given, but before that is given, Jesus tell Judas to go and do what he is going to do. Judas was not there to hear what was to come next. According to John this was a Galilean Passover meal which would happen on a Tuesday and not on a Thursday. This was illegal in Jerusalem. Jesus would in the next day back and forth across Jerusalem being seen by Pontius Pilate, Herod, and the High Priest. Jesus would die on the cross at the same time that the unblemished lamb in the temple was sacrificed for Passover, and buried before sundown on Thursday and would rise on Sunday morning. But that is all before them…
In chapter 14 Jesus tells them that he is going to prepare a place for them because there are many rooms in His Father’s house. This is when Thomas asks Jesus where are you going and how do we find where you are? Jesus may have smiled for how like Thomas to ask these kind of questions, and Jesus says an “I am” statement. He says first I am the way… and he is telling Thomas that he need not worry because He is the way to get to the place, he is preparing for them to go. He says I am the Truth, and he is not just saying to the disciples that he is speaking the truth, but He is saying whatever is the complete truth… “I am that.” It is not like the truths of science that can change whenever a new discovery is made… He is the Truth behind all of those things. Jesus is also telling them that I am the Life… it is because of Him that they will live onward because He is Life. He then tells them that NO One will get to the Father except through Him.
“I am” statements are powerful… Often when a person is asked, “who they are?”, they will respond with what they do or where they live or the name of their family. But when a person owns who they are- they will respond with a bold statement- like “I am a healer.” It means that they are more than a nurse or a doctor… they know that all their being is saying that their purpose is to heal. People don’t often say things like that because they simply do not know their purpose in life. Once they discover their purpose, then that changes…. Jesus knew and owned His purpose. He knew that He was and is the Way to redemption, the Truth of that redemption, and the Life that will be given to those that believe. IT IS a powerful statement.
This is the beginning of a long discourse of things that Jesus is telling them that their hearts will remember and understand what they did not understand that night. As I read His words, I felt a stillness fall over me that I did not feel when I studied under Dr. Kuykendall back in spring of 1973. I know those disciples felt that stillness… they knew God that night as Jesus spoke. Before the dawn of the next morning, their belief in Jesus made them afraid. They would be hiding…but all of that would change after Jesus was resurrected… they would all become bold in their faith… They will know their purpose, and was to preach the words Jesus taught them.
What does this mean for us today? Don’t we know better than those uneducated men.
No, we don’t. We may know what we think are truths, but those truths are not the Truth. Jesus did not only want those who followed them to be kind and patient with others, but he wanted them to be bold in their faith. He wanted them and he wants us to be bold in our faith and to know the purpose that we were called to do. He wants to seek our purpose in our lives….
I don’t believe we have one purpose in life. I have had several. One was for the children on my caseload, and when that was ebbing, it was for mother, and as she was dying, she gave me my next purpose and that was to feed her feral herd of cats. What most do not understand as they joked about me being the crazy cat lady was that God sent those cats to keep me going after I had lost all of my family. When the last of those cats had died, I had no purpose, and I was like being on a boat with no paddle. In October 2019, I was given my new purpose that was to write. I don’t know where it will take me because God only gives me a day at a time.
Today’s question:
Have you asked God to tell you what purpose He has given to you?
Ever in Christ’s love,
Mary Elizabeth Todd
March 13, 2024, and August 27, 2024
Ruhamah United Methodist Church Bible Verses 