A Singular Answer
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
If in my Name, (I Am) you ask Me for anything, I will do it. V.14
My breath catches in my throat; how many times have I asked for, in Jesus’ Name, Holy & Powerful, and crickets?…
I sit under this word chafing, gulping air, angry, disappointed, unsure of how to pray…look at my prayer cards, long lists of people and places I pray for most every day… Where are You? Like 12 year old Margaret, Are You There God? Its me. How do I find my way? I mean, how do I find Your Way?
Jesus says back to me, “I Am the way. I Am the truth. I am the life. Through me to the Father. I am preparing a place - a living,, coronation, cornerstone - for you! You too are a part of the royal priesthood, a chosen race, a holy nation. You were not a people but now you are. Alleluia, you are God’s people! Therefore, Don’t trouble your hearts.
We believe, help us with our unbelief. A Singular Answer
The setting: Jesus’ long farewell discourse, John 13-17, with his disciples, the women and men who have traveled together for 3 years. The air is thick with fear, the senses heightened with foreboding, the end is near.
Jesus washes their feet.
Jesus foretells Judas’ betrayal.
Jesus foretells Peter’s denial.
Jesus will be with them only a little while longer in the flesh.
No wonder their hearts are troubled. The ground is shaking!
They thought He was the one, the Messiah, that would bring about freedom from domination by the Romans, make Jerusalem the center of religious life - the place where God dwells - the Temple restored to its former majesty. Instead, Jesus says He’s leaving! Where are you going? Can we come too, get out of this retrace called life? What place will you prepare? When will you be back? “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
It is the existential question that hovers in our minds and hearts. What happens after we die? We claim this is where God dwells, in the realm beyond the boundaries of our world, an intangible arena without our familiar space/time continuum. The impenetrable mystery illumined by luminous moments of encounter with the presence of the Triune God. The promise? I will be with you always, even to the ends of the earth, Jesus says. For I AM the way, the truth, and the life. Know me, know the Father; once I go, We will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. You are NOT ALONE. (Pause)
Disciples are called back to the fundamental relationship that exists before and beyond time. Within the God-head, the Trinity generates space for others, an in-dwelling that is born on the weight of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. His embodiment, born a baby, now a grown man of flesh & blood, bone & breath, love & loss, Jesus will bring us home to eternal life, a participation in the very being of God! It is a greater promise than made in wedding vows - …til death do us part - rather, God chooses not to be God without us, therefore, we are given life abundant and after death, forever. I AM is the Name of the promise first given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. I AM in the flesh is Jesus: You see Me, He says? You’ve seen the Father. I AM is a promise and a word of comfort, Jesus is all we need. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we will do greater things than Jesus. He entrusts His mission to us: WPC is ‘greater works’! Yeah, right.
What daya think?
So what if God’s track of time is not our own? We hurt, deeply when one we love dies, their mortal life complete, especially suddenly or young, according to our frame of reference. Our hearts break open at another mass shooting, in a school, a medical office, a neighborhood, a grocery store, an outlet mall, a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple. Gun rights people offer this cold comfort: mass shootings are the price of freedom. But only in this country, compared to anywhere around the world. The U.S. has more guns then people. This is a fact.
We get so afraid watching the news, its repeated score of violence and a theory of scarcity so present, we lose our sense of the presence of God. Troubled is hardly a big enough word. More like stirred up, unsettled, thrown into confusion, is the depth of it. Yet we are called to hear Jesus’ voice once again: I AM right here, right here, right here. As the water rises, I will hold you; when the tsunami of grief hits, I am your bulwark. Even the floodwaters of doubt will not overcome, for I AM with you and I AM for you. A Singular Answer
We need to imagine God into eternity - then the loved one we suffer as loss is still out there being healed, brought to wholeness, redeemed. We need to see countries at peace, visible care of enemies of one another, the glimmer of truth that suggests there is so much more going on then we know. While we yearn in this sphere, to be made whole, the dead get to experience the fullness of the in-dwelling of the Triune God, We live this side of heaven, redemption on the way, yet incomplete. As St. Paul says, ‘Now we see through a glass darkly, then we shall see face to face.” The power of the Triune God stands up against the demonic voices in continuous battle for the souls and lives of everyone on earth. It is not the few, it is the everyone’s Jesus looks out for. God is in it for the long-haul, as long as it takes.
John’s gospel in particular hammers home the exclusive claim of Jesus as the only way to the Father. He goes so far as to eclipse any promise God made to the ancient people, Jews, Israel. Yet he also writes about many mansions, dwelling places, or it may be that he is writing from an ‘insider’s perspective’ that is disciple to disciple, rather than a judgment on the whole wide world in God’s hands. I have often said, ‘if God breaks covenant with Israel, I am damned.’ By that I mean God’s faithfulness is the eternal promise of grace sufficient for all through the way, the truth and the life of Jesus Christ. If one covenant can be broken by God, what makes us think ours cannot? We do best, us Christians, when we leave eternity’s judgment to the Triune God, whom we adore. It is a position of humility, of living with the unknown and uncertainty of faith. Look at how people live their lives. They may express Christ, even if their lips have not yet confessed Him Lord of all.
How does God do it? I don’t know. All I know is God found me through Jesus Christ almost 50 years ago, and brought me home to Himself, after a distinct long time in the wilderness. Over the course of my life, He has come out to the wild again and again and again, to rescue me. And I believe He does the same for you. A Singular Answer. Amen