Are you familiar with the phrase, “you can’t there from here”? For those of you who aren’t, allow me to explain it to you with an illustration.
Years ago, I served as the recruitment director for one of our synodical high schools. My job was to travel around the country and encourage young people to consider serving the Lord in the public ministry. Early one Wisconsin winter my travels took me to Flagstaff Arizona. There I met up with an old classmate who was serving his vicar year at the local Lutheran congregation where I was scheduled to do a presentation the next day. I arrived a day early so my friend and I could spend some time enjoying the local attractions together. Of course, the local attraction I am referring to is Las Vegas; the entertainment capital of the world. Back then we used the phrase “local attraction” loosely; technically Las Vegas is 250 miles from Flagstaff, but when you are young and full of adventure you do not quibble over such details.
So, my friend and I set out for fun night in Vegas. Back then phones were not as smart as they are now, and GPS was still a military technology, so I dug a map out of the glovebox of the rental car, and we began to plot our course. Immediately we noticed that the highway between Flagstaff and Las Vegas went south before it went north. Well we were just two young yankees who were new to life in the wild west, but we knew that the fastest route between two point is and always has been a straight line. So, we crammed the map back into the glovebox and headed straight for the strip. Now those of you who have a fifth-grade knowledge of Geography have likely guessed where this illustration is headed. However, for those of you who didn’t pay attention in fifth grade geography class let me spell it out for you.
The trip started out smoothly and we spent no small amount of time congratulating each other on our cleverness. We estimated that our shortcut would save us about an hour, which meant we would have more time to see the city. Soon, however, the highway turned into a county road. Not long after that, the county road turned into a dirt road. Eventually the dirt road narrowed and then disappeared entirely. Before we knew it, my friend and I were trail blazing a new path across the high desert. Now, I understand most people would have turned around at this point, but what you need to understand is we were getting so close to Vegas that the siren song of the strip compelled us to keep going. So, we drove further and further and further into the wilderness; we drove until we could drive no more. We discovered why people don’t drive straight to Las Vegas from Flagstaff. Before us was a 277-mile-long, 18-mile-wide, 1-mile-deep hole in the ground called the Grand Canyon. It was at that point that my friend and I became familiar with the phrase, “you can’t get there from here.”
In our gospel lesson, from John 14:1-12, the disciples want to get to a place far more exciting than Las Vegas, but they just can’t seem to figure out how to get there from here.
The place they want to get to is described in verse 2. There Jesus tells His disciples, “2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” Jesus describes the place as His “Father’s house”. The disciples were to imagine a place where a family gathers; a place where there is love and support, care and concern, a place where needs are provided, and protection is given. Further, they were to imagine this place, where the family gathers, not as a hotel or leased apartment, they were to imagine the place as a house; it was a permanent structure in which they would not simply stay, but perpetually dwell. Jesus tells the disciples, inside this house there were “many rooms”. There was to be no concern that the house would fill up. The disciples are assured that there would be room for all the Father’s children. And not just any rooms, these rooms would be constructed by the Son of a carpenter; Joseph’s adopted son Jesus, who knows the Father’s children better than anyone else, indeed better than those children know themselves, Jesus who knows every want and every need of the Father’s children will personally “prepare” those rooms. Finally, Jesus told His disciples those rooms were not reserved for the rich and famous, rather they were reserved for common everyday people. Jesus told His disciples these rooms are reserved “for you”.
Years later Jesus did more than invite John to imagine this place, He allowed him to see it. The sight of this place so overwhelmed John that he struggled to explain its splendor. John saw a place where a great multitude dressed in white has gathered. He saw a place where there was no death or mourning or crying or pain. He saw jeweled walls, pearly gates, and streets of gold. John got to see what Jesus invited his disciples to imagine.
The disciples could not fully comprehend the place Jesus had described to them, but they comprehended enough to know that they wanted to go to there. There was just one problem, they didn’t know how to get there from here. Thomas, speaking for all of humanity, said to Jesus, “5 Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Throughout history people have tried to answer that question in a variety of ways. It seems everyone wants to go to the place Jesus describes, they just don’t always agree how to get there. The Egyptians thought the sun god Ra was the way. The Romans thought Zeus, the god of thunder was the way. The American Indians thought Gaia (mother earth) was the way. Currently 1.6 billion Muslims think Allah is the way. There are even some who believe they are profound thinkers because they took a philosophy 101 class that say ‘all the different religions of the world are merely diverse expressions of the same truth and all of these beliefs are simply different paths to the same place. Well, of course those profound thinkers are correct. All those different paths: Ra, Zeus, Gaia, Allah and the like do lead to the same place. They just don’t lead to the place that Jesus describes. They lead to a hole in the ground far deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Believing there are many different paths to get to the place that Jesus describes is ridiculous, but it is no more ridiculous than the path that, from time to time, you and I find ourselves on. We may not blatantly head off in the wrong direction, but we sure have attempted our fair share of shortcuts.
The path that Jesus places before us is not always an easy one. On this path there are sacrifices they need to be made. For example, we don’t get to say whatever we want to say, not to the person who insults us to our face, not to the person who slanders us on Facebook, not even to the person who takes the last roll of toilet paper. And we don’t get to do whatever we want to do, not because it feels good, not because they deserve it, not even because no one will ever know. The path that Jesus places before us is not always an easy one. From time to time we stray from that path because the temptation to take a shortcut, to say whatever we want to say, to do whatever we want to do, is frankly an easier path to follow. But that path will not get us where we want to go. That path, like so many others, leads to a hole in the ground far deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Throughout history people have imagined a variety of paths that lead to the place that Jesus described. Thankfully, Thomas had the good sense to ask Jesus to show him the way. “6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Every time Jesus starts a sentence with the words “I am” I cannot help but think about the LORD God speaking to Moses from the burning bush, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.”[1] It is an obvious claim to be the one true God, not only of the Israelites, but of all that is. As the one true God of all that is, Jesus tells Thomas that He is the one and only path to the place He has just described. Notice, Jesus “does not say, ‘I show you the way,’ like a second Moses; but, ‘I am the way.’” Jesus does not say, “‘I have the truth,’ like another Elijah; but ‘I am the truth.’” Jesus does not say, “‘I lead into life,’ as one of his apostles; but, ‘I am the life.’ ”[2] Jesus is the one and only path to the place that He describes. That is why saint Luke would later write in Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” That is why saint Paul would latter write in 1 Timothy 2:5, “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” And that is why to this day we confess that “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, who for us and for our salvation, came down from heaven…”[3] Jesus is the one and only path to the place that He describes.
The only way Thomas and the disciples, or you and I, or anyone else, for that matter, are going to get to the place that Jesus describes, is through Jesus. Only the people washed clean in the blood of God’s one and only Son wear the white robes because only through Jesus are the righteous requirements of the law fulfilled. Only the path paved with the perfection of God’s one and only Son leads to the pearly gates because only through Jesus is the payment for sin made. Only by our faith in Who Jesus is and what Jesus has done are we going to get to there from here.
After my friend and I realized we could not get to where we wanted to be from where we were, we backtracked to the highway and followed the directions the map gave us. But by the time we made it to Vegas we only had enough time to drive down the strip and grab a bite to eat before we had to head back to Flagstaff. Our shortcut cost us a fun night in Vegas. Trying to take a different path or shortcut to the place that Jesus describes in our Gospel lesson for today costs a great deal more. Thankfully, by the work of the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament we know Jesus, we know the way, we know the truth, we know the life. We know Jesus, and because we know Jesus we know how to get to there from here. Amen
[1] Exodus 3:14
[2] Dr Julius Koegel
[3] The Nicene Creed