Asking the Right Questions
“I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
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Over the years, I’ve been asked some very poignant questions. One said, “My daughter’s best friend is Jewish. And last night she came to me very worried whether or not her friend would make it to heaven. What should I tell her?”
Another asked: “My neighbor is the kindest, most generous person I know. He also prays five times a day. He is Muslim. What will happen to him when he dies? He is a better person than most Christians I know.”
What would you say? For some, interpretations from this passage in John’s Gospel have been easy: “It says what it says. ‘No one comes to the Father but through Jesus.’ Simple. Cut and dry.”
But there is another way to view this passage. Let’s look more broadly at other key passages from the other three Gospels and consider more carefully what we should be asking.
The Faith of Friends; Mark 2:5: In the second chapter of Mark, there appears one of my favorite stories. Jesus is at home and the place is packed with people, so many that no one else can fit inside. There is a man who is paralyzed; he has four friends who are determined that he is going to see Jesus because they want Jesus to heal him. They carry him to the house, see that there is no more room, and proceed to climb up on the roof of the place, take off the tile, dig through the insulation, make a hole big enough for a large stretcher with a man on it, and proceed to lower him to the floor in front of Jesus.
With the man lying in front of him, the scripture tells us: “When he saw their faith …“ Jesus proceeds to speak to the man and heal him of his problem.
Notice, the man never says a word. We don’t know the state of his heart or of his faith. For all we know, he has no faith. But interestingly, it was not his faith that determines the outcome: it was the faith of his friends.
What kind of friend are you? Would your faith facilitate healing, or connect another person to wholeness and holiness? These questions clearly emerge in this passage. Consider what God expects of us from what Jesus says in this story.
Questionable faith; Luke 23:43: In Luke’s crucifixion scene of chapter 23, Jesus is hanging on the cross between two criminals. One calls out sarcastically: “If you are the Messiah, save us and yourself!”
But the other one interrupts, chastises the first and says: “Jesus, remember me when you enter into your kingdom” (23:43).
Jesus says in response: “This day you will be with me in paradise.”
This was a criminal. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t ask to be saved, just to be remembered. He doesn’t follow Jesus. And he doesn’t really repent in the traditional sense most of us are accustomed to. But Jesus welcomes him into the kingdom.
What do you think about this? Is this fair? Should Jesus have asked him some basic questions of faith, scriptural understanding, and maybe a little church history? Again, fascinating questions arise from this passage we need to take seriously.
Practical Faith; Matthew 25:31-46: And in the parable of the sheep and goats, those who are rewarded with eternal life don’t even know Jesus. They just feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick and in prison, and clothe those who have nothing to wear. In the end, they are surprised by the fact that they are rewarded for their faithfulness.
“Lord, when was it we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink … ” (Matthew 25:37)?
They had no idea they were going to be rewarded for their actions. They recognized a reality that was out of sync with the hopes of God and were attempting to address the situation in a practical way.
So in the parable, they are referred to by Jesus as “the righteous.” There appears no expectation that their good deeds will be recognized. This is because they were doing the right thing for the right reason – it needed to be done.
So we have a man saved by the faith of his friends; a man saved on a cross not by faith but by grace; and people entering the presence of God because they cared for other people in need because it was the right thing to do, not because anything they said or church they attended. What do you hear of God’s expectations in this vital story?
Actionable Faith; John 13: And let’s look at where it fits in the broader picture: What Jesus does in chapter 13 is crucial to understanding what Jesus says in 14. In chapter 13, Jesus welcomes his disciples into the upper room in preparation for their sharing of the evening meal. He surprises them by taking a towel, kneeling down, and washing each and every one of the disciple’s feet. He becomes a servant, he humbles himself and tells them to do the same for others. He takes no account of who he washes or what they have done or will do: Peter, Judas – they are all there. One will deny, one will betray, all will run away, and all get ministered to by Jesus.
So what Jesus does here, sets the stage for what says: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.”
Jesus Shows the Way: A few years ago at Hickory Ridge High School, just out of Charlotte, North Carolina, there was student athlete named Ally Yeager. As I shared in my sermon this past Sunday, she was a star softball player who led her team in batting average, slugging percentage, and on base percentage. She was the team’s best fielder; she was the teams best player. She also had only one hand.
Her teammates were both humbled to play with her, and inspired to play with her. She made them all better players because they all knew, if Ally could do it, we should be able to do it. She showed her team the way to be, the way to win.
Jesus shows the way. To look at his life, to listen to his teaching, to understand his sacrifice. Jesus demonstrates a better way of being, a better way of doing: compassion, justice, humility, integrity, honesty, peace, joy. Each is joined together with the eternal nature of God’s love. Jesus shows the way.
Jesus Makes the Way: It was in May, 1961, a group of courageous students began to gather for a bold, and very dangerous, mission. Against the advice of many others in the civil rights movement, these young people had decided that the only way this country was going to change and allow blacks and whites to share equal rights, equal schools, equal restrooms and water fountains, busses, and waiting rooms was to do something radical – at least it was radical then. Today is seems odd: to participate in non-violent sit-ins and integrated bus trips with African-American students intermingling with whites, riding on the same bus in the same seats.
From Nashville to Birmingham, Birmingham to Montgomery, Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi. It seems simple enough now. They were attempting to live out Jesus’ demand to love their enemies, turn the other cheek, walk the second mile. They had been trained well; they were disciplined and determined; brave and highly spiritual. They sang hymns, gospel songs of freedom, of Jesus giving his all, of Moses leading the people out of slavery.
Outside of Birmingham, one of the busses was surrounded and set on fire. Students fleeing the flames were beaten mercilessly. They refused to fight back; and they also refused to give up. In Birmingham, they were attacked; in Montgomery an angry mob of three thousand whites tore into the young students. By this time, the federal government had gotten involved. Robert Kennedy was Attorney General. He instructed his personal envoy to get to the student leader, a young woman.
He got her on the phone in Montgomery: “You’ve got to stop, you can’t go on, you are going to get yourself killed!”
He said there was a long pause. Then she quietly said: “Sir, last night, all of us signed our Last Will and Testament. We are prepared to die if that is what it takes to make a way for our people to be free, and for this country to live up to its creed.”
They made a way by courageously standing up to injustice and inhumanity. They made a way by giving others the courage to join the movement. Every time one of the Freedom Riders was put in prison, each time there was a massive beating, more students came, more joined the cause. The jails filled. Parchment Prison outside of Jackson, Mississippi had no more room. Still they came. They made a way – a movement was born, and a social transformation began.
The Gospels are clear: Jesus changes things, transforms hearts, realigns spirits, renews perspectives. In Matthew, at the moment of Jesus’ death, the veil of the temple is torn in two from top to bottom. This was an act not of human hands, but of something beyond this world and outside our limited understanding. Jesus makes the way to God possible without a preacher, without a temple. Jesus makes the way; Jesus shows the way; and, finally:
Jesus Is the Way: “I am the way, the truth and the life…” Now reconsider the next phrase: “… no one comes to the Father but by me.” This sounds pretty exclusive. But Jesus is speaking to his disciples before the crucifixion, before the resurrection. In this sense, we can say that Jesus is the way because Jesus has been the way, walked the way, died the way, opened up the way – for all of us. I Timothy 2:3-4 says, “God … desires all people everywhere to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth.” God wants it. God desires it. Will God get it, the completion of this good creation, the men and women and children created in the image of God, male and female?
Again, in the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I shall draw all people unto me” (John 12:32). All people? All people. But what about the earlier questions I’ve been asked over the years: will our friends of other faiths make it to heaven?
We are asking the wrong question. Ultimately, the answer to that great mystery is up to God. The real question the Bible wants us to ask is: “Am I living the way that I should? Like Jesus, am I showing the way, living the way, being the way? Am I demonstrating compassion? Am I standing for justice? Am I offering kindness? Do I have a humble spirit? Am I doing unto others as I would have them do unto me? Do others see Jesus’ ways and perspectives in me?”
So as with many things in life, the best answer really begins with asking the right questions.
David Jordan
Senior Pastor