In an attempt to re-energize my blogging, I offer this sample of what is to come . . .
Many people knew
Donald Jarvis over the sixty-seven years of his life. He was the first-born son to my grandparents
Grace and Jerrie. Seventeen years later
he became a fellow Marine among the few and the proud. He was a skilled machinist most of his work
life. He was a crafty euchre player and
an artist who worked beauty on canvas and with precious stones. Three different women knew him as husband
(the second being my mother). Six of us
knew him as father.
The night before
his crucifixion, John remembered Jesus saying something that has caused no
little controversy since then: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through
me.” (John 14:6) At different times, Jesus made it clear that
the life God calls us to is neither simple nor easy. He spoke of a needle’s eye and a narrow
way. He called his followers to denial
of self and hatred of life in this world.
On first glance, his words on this last night before his crucifixion
seem to draw a severe line in the sand that excludes many who never hear of Him
or who are not inclined to follow.
We need to note
what occupied Jesus’ thoughts that night.
“In my Father’s house . . .” “Show us the Father . . .” The word “Father” in reference to God appears
forty-five times in these three chapters (John 14-16), mostly from the lips of
Jesus. Maybe Jesus’ urgency was not that
we just find our way to heaven when we die or believe in “God” as we might
imagine Him. But that we “come to the
Father.”
In his last night
with these men who will soon launch His Church, Christ wants them to always
remember that the kingdom of God consists primarily not of a destination or a dogma
or anything we can claim to own and keep in our pocket, but of an eternal
relationship that produces everything of worth.
Whether then or
now, people present themselves as on good terms with “God” through spiritual
systems of their own making. Jesus knows
this. He also knows where He has come
from and where He is going (John 13:3).
And so He says that if they want to know the Father, they must pay
attention to Him.
You can view my
father’s paintings that adorn the walls of my house. My wife often wears rings he made for
her. But only his children can share
with you what life was like with him as a father.
This is where my
personal analogy falls short. My father
died twenty years ago. He left no
letters behind that explain his thinking.
His surviving sister and brother’s memories are fading. My siblings and I have mined all we know of
each other’s experience and our recollections of him are as imperfect as he
was. Full appreciation of his story awaits
the day when we will know perfectly, even as we are perfectly known (I
Corinthians 13:12).
In contrast, Jesus
offers a way to the Father that is unerring. His truth about the Father is complete and His
life with the Father is unendingly full of joy.
Jesus wants to share this intimacy with us. This is what Christians stake their hopes
upon. This is what fuels their love and
renews their faith.
Jesus offers a quality
of relationship that until now only He has known. For three years the disciples observed this living
relationship. Their interest may have started with amazement at his miracles or
a hope that Jesus would lead Israel
John records Jesus’
words in the negative: “no one can . . . except . . .” They could just as well had been phrased “everyone can come to the Father through
me.” Are these words a line in the sand
or an invitation? I believe that it’s
not enough for our Maker that the whole world bows before him in submission. He’d rather have us climb into his lap like
those little children of whom Jesus said the kingdom belongs.
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