#1
You never really know somebody until… what?
How would you complete that sentence?
You never really know somebody until…
• You’ve said no to them
• Unti… you’ve seen them stressed
You never really know somebody until…
• You’ve travelled with them
• You’ve done business with them
• You’ve lived with them
• You’ve played a Call of Duty game with them
• You never really know somebody until you’ve met their family
What would your tip be from your own experience, I wonder?
My guess is: you wouldn’t naturally finish the sentence like this:
‘You never really know somebody… until they leave you.’
That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, does it?
And yet that seems to be the reality we encounter as we return to the gospel of John today.
Twelve men have been travelling along a bit of a bumpy road for 2-3 years now. And they’ve had only one real constant along that bumpy road, which is: their travelling companion, Jesus of Nazareth.
They’d been called to his side. ‘Follow me’, they’d been told about three years ago. And they’d obeyed. They’d left everything. Followed him. And stuck with him, through thick and thin.
And over those three years, they have seen that travelling companion of theirs, Jesus of Nazareth, in all sorts of situations.
• They’ve seen him hungry and thirsty.
• They’ve seen him tired.
• They’ve seen him in grief.
• They’ve seen him distressed.
• They’ve seen him angry.
• They’ve seen him weeping.
• They’ve seen him when people were trying to kill him.
• They’ve seen him receiving adulation.
• They’ve seen him with his enemies.
• They’ve seen him with his Mum.
They’ve seen him at the highs and the lows. If you’d asked them: ‘do you know Jesus?’ I imagine they’d have laughed you out of town. ‘What are you talking about? Of course we know him!’
And yet. If you were listening to the reading a second ago, you might have detected a slight question mark there. Maybe.
Did you see that in verse 7: “if you really know me” – says Jesus to Thomas, one of the 12.
‘If’. ‘Really’.
Or verse 9, this time to Philip: ‘don’t you… know me, even after I’ve been with you such a long time?’
You see what I mean? There is a question mark here, isn’t here, about whether they really do know Jesus as they should
Now where’s that come from? It’s come from a situation that has just arisen.
Chapter 12 of John’s gospel was a bit of a high point along the journey. Jesus had gone into Jerusalem, to the applause of crowds all round: ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’.
But in the very next chapter, chapter 13, as Jesus sits down in an upper room with his disciples, this rollercoaster of a journey with Jesus has plummeted down to the depths. With not one, or two, but three moments of horror.
First is the Judas moment: ‘One of you is going to betray me’ says Jesus (13:21)? Who is it?
‘It’s the one’ (v26) I give this piece of bread to. Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.
What a thing! Judas, their CFO, their trusted treasurer, has gone totally off the reservation
But then second, there’s the Peter moment. Last verse of chapter 13.
Peter’s doing the gung-ho thing, the ‘I’m with you to the end – I’ll die for you’ thing. But Jesus comes back to him: “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”
What? Peter of all people is going to let the side down?
A Judas moment and a Peter moment! This is disaster. But in between the two of them is the worst horror moment of all: the Jesus moment. Back in verse 33.
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
In other words, Jesus is breaking up with them! He’s leaving them. For real.
And where we begin in chapter 14 is with the remaining disciples just reeling from all this. They’re in a total spin. Look at what Jesus has to say to them.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.’
But why on earth not? Surely this is the end of the road for them, isn’t it?
No Jesus = No… anything.
The whole journey has been a journey with him. If he’s off, I guess this is it. End of the line.
Unless they’ve been putting him in the wrong basket all this time.
Maybe he’s not just a travelling companion along the road. Maybe he’s more than that. Maybe he is the road. And maybe he will only really be that, and they can only really grasp it, they can only really know him for what he really is – if… he goes away.
Maybe it’s only because of his imminent departure that he is able to say, v6, ‘I am the way.
Well, what does he mean by that? In what sense is Jesus ‘the way’?
Let’s have a look.
For one thing, what Jesus means is: ‘I am the way… to your journey’s end.’
#2
Look, he says, you need to learn to extend your faith to me. You need to start leaning on me, as you lean on God.
End of verse 1.
You believe in God; believe also in me.
This is important, actually, for anyone here still trying to get their heads around the basics of the Christian faith. Faith is not just a worldview, or a belief system, or a code of conduct, or something like that. It’s a personal thing. Person to person: you and Jesus.
Now that’s fine, but where’s he going with this?
Well, think of the temple, he says. God’s home on earth. You’ll recall it has lots of different rooms: the high priests chamber, the priests ritual bath chamber, the chamber where the gold and silver vessels were stored, the Sanhedrin meeting room – and so on. Lots of rooms in God’s home on earth.
Well you could say that God’s real home in heaven is just the same. Verse 2.
My Father’s house has many rooms
But do you know what they’re for? These rooms in heaven? They’re for you!
Still in verse 2.
if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?
Well this is what we long for, isn’t it? At a deep level? We long for that a place in heaven. An eternal home.
I remember chatting to a young man a while back who wanted to be a diplomat. He said it ran in the family.
And I said: ‘What? Your Dad was a diplomat?’
‘Oh no’, he said. ‘It skips generations. I’ve had a really stable sense of home growing up, so I’ve got itchy feet now. I’m ready to travel. But my dad: well, he was dragged all over the world, growing up, by his diplomat Dad. And after that, there’s nothing he wanted more than to settle down in one place for the rest of his life.
If you and I have a sense of the world and our place in it being just a bit unstable, a bit insecure, a bit volatile; and us not really quite fitting in, which is maybe how most of us feel, I think, then no wonder we long for a better home, a real home, an eternal home.
CS Lewis called it ‘The Inconsolable Longing’.
#3
In the final chapter of his book ’The Problem of Pain’, he says:
There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else…
He goes on to talk about how hard it is to put into words, but how perfectly the reality of heaven fits with the deep longing of each of our souls.
Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it — made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.
This really is what we long for, isn’t it?
#4
And now we get to where Jesus is going with this. If that’s the destination, he says, what’s the route? How do get there? Answer: I’ve got it sorted. Verse 3,
3 …if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
If someone comes to stay at your place, you’re probably going to make a bit of an effort to make them welcome, aren’t you? It’s part of the hospitality deal. Change the sheets, give them a glass of water, leave them a towel, show them how to work the dodgy shower control. Whatever it is. Well Jesus is going to prepare a place for our eternal home. So that’s presumably going to involve a big operation. Lots to be done.
Starting with what’s going to happen the very next day: Jesus going to his death to clear the path. And when all that needs to be done has been done, at the end of history, Jesus himself will come back and show us to our new homes. What a prospect!
But then he adds the comment which confuses Thomas.
Verse 4.
You know the way to the place where I am going.”
And Thomas says: ‘Er, do we?’
Verse 5.
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
And so Jesus puts it as clearly as he can.
You want to know the way? You’re looking at it, or rather him – he says.
6 Jesus answered, “I… am the way… and the truth… and the life.
Do you see what I mean about Jesus being not just our travelling companion along the road, but the road itself. In fact not just the road, the means of transport: he’s the uber driver, you might say. He’s the one who’s going to do all that’s needed so that we can reach our heavenly home and enjoy an eternity with him there.
I know in some circles it’s more fashionable to talk about just the difference that Jesus makes to our lives now. And maybe fair enough. That’s not nothing. There is a huge difference he makes to our lives in the here and now.
But right here, he wants us to know if we are thinking longer term, if we want to make it to heaven, he’s the one who will get us there.
Which means – what exactly? It means: if heaven is indeed the desire of our hearts, all we need to do is just to go to him. Nothing more. We don’t need to do all sorts of fancy things or rituals or other procedures. We don’t need to do anything.
Except maybe just ask him: please Jesus, on the basis of all that you’ve done – your life, your death, your resurrection, your ascension – please be ‘the way’… for me. When the time comes, take me to my journey’s end, my heavenly home with you.
Jesus is the way to our journey’s end.
But you’ve probably noticed he immediately gets more specific. I’ve summarised his gist there as I am the way to our Father’s embrace.
#5
And by embrace I mean real relationship: getting close to him, knowing him, seeing him,.
There’s the getting close to him bit – there in verse 6.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to (that is, approaches, draws close to) the Father except through me.
And there’s the knowing him bit, in verse 7.
If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well.
And there’s the seeing him bit straight afterwards:
From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Now in many ways, this isn’t really new to us. In chapter 1, verse 18, we heard that:
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
So it’s not really new to us readers. But it is apparently to Philip.
A moment ago, it was Thomas making a clumsy comment. Now it’s Philip’s turn.
Verse 8.
Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
I’m not quite sure what Thomas is expecting there. I mean, Moses was one of the greatest spiritual giants of all time, and all he got to see, you remember, was the back of God’s glory, while being shielded in a cleft in the rock. That was back in Exodus 33.
Why? Because nobody can see God and live.
And yet, maybe they can.
Because Jesus himself is the way to relationship with the Father. To encounter him is to encounter the Father.
Three ways he makes the point.
You encounter the Father in the sight of Jesus: back end of v.14 ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’.
You encounter the Father in the words of Jesus: verse 10: ‘The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather it is the Father living me who is doing his work.
And you encounter the Father in the identity of Jesus: verse 11: ‘Believe me when I say: I am in the Father and the Father is in me’.
To know Jesus, the Son, is effectively to know God the Father.
I wonder if you’ve ever dabbled in that game of reflected glory that we play every now and then. You have some vague connection with a VIP, perhaps, and not only does it give you a nice dinner party anecdote; the connection makes you feel somehow a little bit important yourself. Your friend’s Mum’s primary school teacher is the new MP of Walthamstow. And you feel: ‘I am just a few steps removed from greatness.
Ever played that game?
I discovered something last year that I didn’t know. My half-brother used to play tennis with the King. King Charles. Every week. I had no idea. I knew they went to school together. I didn’t know they buddied up as tennis partners. And when I heard that, I found myself feeling like an inch taller. I am just a couple of steps removed from greatness.
It’s pathetic, isn’t it?!
Actually, it’s particularly pathetic for the Christian. Because the truth is, I actually know someone who shares the throne of God the Father himself. I have a friendship with the one through whom the entire universe was brought into being. I know the one who is the visible manifestation of God himself. And what can trump that?
Jesus is the one who makes God known. And not just in terms of understanding but in terms of relationship.
John, the narrator of this biography of Jesus, summarised it like this earlier on in the book. Chapter 1, verse 11:
to all who did receive [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
Jesus is the way to the Father’s embrace.
And we need to be clear about this: he is the only way. Back in verse 6: ‘no-one comes to the Father except by me’.
There are not different pathways up the mountain. Other religions are not compatible with Jesus. And those who may try to convince you they are – well, I have to say, they’re guilty of lazy thinking. They clearly haven’t studied the words of Jesus. Or else they don’t believe them. And they’ve certainly never thought through the question of why God would send his own beloved Son to his death to provide a way, if some other way was available.
Well time is pressing, and there’s one more aspect Jesus as the way that we need to notice.
And that is that Jesus is the way… to a brand new and more wonderful era.
#6
Do you ever catch yourself thinking how wonderful it would have been to have actually hung around with Jesus in person? Actually seen him in the flesh, with your own two eyes. You ever feel like having to just read about him in the Bible is… second prize? Well I’m not sure that’s the right way to think about it.
Look at what Jesus says in verse 12.
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
That is, the era after Jesus being on earth, the era which he will bring about by his departure, in other words our era, will be an era when the experience of Christian believers is even better than the old era. A time of ‘greater things’ being done than even Jesus did!
And more than that, that there’ll be greater answers to prayer than you can imagine.
Verse 14.
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
It sounds amazing, doesn’t it? This new era.
Now don’t make the mistake some Bible readers have made and assume that by ‘greater works’, Jesus means things ‘greater in their impressiveness’. I’m not sure quite what would be more impressive than Jesus raising the rotting corpse of Lazarus to new life.
And don’t make the further mistake of thinking that in verses 13 and 14 2Jesus is guaranteeing to give us the Lamborghini and the cheque for £1 billion that we ask for.
No, you just have to read on in the Bible to see what he means by greater works. Remember the reason Jesus does the things he does? It’s hinted at at the end of verse 11 there. His works are to undergird belief. That is, their purpose is to draw people’s attention to who he is so that they will believe in him and can experience new life in him.
Well, look, when Jesus does go away, what does he do? He sends his Spirit. And as soon as he does that, on the day of Pentecost, we see the greater works starting to happen. Peter will draw the attention of the massed crowds visiting Jerusalem to who Jesus is and 3,000 of them from across Africa and Asia and Europe will respond and receive that forgiveness and new life, and will then take the message home with them, so it spreads even further.
In other words this era is an era of greater works being done, because the Spirit Jesus would send enables mission in a new way and with a new power. People are being drawn to Jesus on a far greater scale than Jesus could ever do just walking around Judea. And with a far greater scope: people from every tribe, nation and tongue are turning to him.
I mean just take one example. Look at what happened in Africa this last hundred years or so. Christianity there grew from 10 million people in the year 1900 to 730 million today. How? By the work of the Spirit Jesus would send when he went away, empowering the people of God to speak about Jesus.
And the prayers being answered? Because the Spirit’s aim is to bring glory to Jesus’ name, that means any prayer we pray that Jesus would add his name to, any request that could be countersigned by Jesus as it were, is a prayer that will be answered.
Now many of us do struggle with unanswered prayer, I know. It’s painful and confusing, isn’t it? But I wonder if at least part of that is unrealistic expectations.
• If they’re prayers to be prayed in Jesus’ name, that means he’s probably not talking about self-serving requests, things that wouldn’t be compatible with taking up our cross; or indeed self-harming requests – things we think would be good for us, but he knows won’t be.
• And if these prayers are going to bring glory to the Father, that means trusting God with the timing of his answers, rather than setting the timescales ourselves.
• And so on. We do need to train our expectations here. And be patient. I’ve certainly had to learn patience in my prayers!
But this era Jesus would bring about by going away would be an era of prayers being answered, as well as great things being done – all over the shop.
So why not be a part of it? This new wonderful era. Why don’t we put our voices into the mix – find ways of drawing the attention the world around to Jesus, so that that new life can abound? And ask our heavenly father for the kind of things that Jesus could put his name to and would bring glory to the Father?
This new era Jesus has brought about is an even more wonderful era that the one his 12 disciples knew.
As we close, let me just add one more thing.
#7
On Friday morning, our dear brother Pete Squibb lay in a hospice bed a few miles away, and breathed his last breath, after 87 years here on earth.
He will be sorely missed.
He was much loved by many of us who’ve known him these past few years.
And of course by the handful here who’ve some known him and enjoyed him for many years.
And now he’s gone.
But here’s the thing we’ve been reminded of today about Pete. This isn’t the end of the journey for Pete. Not by a long shot.
Because although Jesus was very much Pete’s travelling companion along the journey, he wasn’t just that.
For Pete, Jesus really was the one who would take him to his journey’s end, his heavenly home.
And Jesus was and is the one who would bring him into his heavenly Father’s embrace.
And the reason Pete heard about Jesus and experienced this new life is because he lived in this era, the era of the Spirit, when the message of Jesus has spread across the world, even as far as Southampton.
For Pete, Jesus really was the way. And I trust he will be for us.