Rev. Samuel Adams, St. George's Episcopal Church
In John 14:3-7, Jesus answers Thomas' sincere question: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’"
The Rev. Sam Adams started his sermon on October 1 explaining Jesus' comment about being the "Way." Sam said that we often misinterpret this verse, thinking that Jesus is a gatekeeper or a bouncer, only letting people who are worthy through an invisible barrier to know God. Instead, Sam explained that Jesus is what the Father is like, so if we know Jesus, then we know the Father, too. Jesus was explaining to the disciples that if they knew him, they would also have intimate knowledge of God. 1st century Jews would be eager to know what they needed to do to know God.
We often talk of the christian walk as a journey, that once we become a christian we travel along a path of more and more understanding. Although this is true, it isn't the final answer. When Jesus says he is the "Way", it is beckoning us to stop searching for things to fill the void in our life and instead, when we know Christ as the "Way", our searching ends.
Sam ended with a quote from Wendell Berry in Wendell’s, A Sabbath Poem, 1997 VII: "There is a day when the road neither comes nor goes, and the way is not a way but a place."
I pray that you will know Him and will have seen Him, and you will find the peace and freedom that comes with having found the place.
Blessings, my friend,
Agatha