"I am the way"

When you have a verse as rich as John 14:6, it is impossible to focus on all of its assets effectively in one post. For this reason I will attempt to highlight "the way" and leave truth and life for another time.

For the sake of context we must understand that Jesus has just made a statement that he will be leaving shortly and that his disciples will know the way to where he is going. Thomas, who I believe has wrongly taken a bad rap for years, asks Jesus how they were to know the way? This is a fantastic question which leads up to a fantastic answer.

On the very first canoe trip that I ever lead/co-lead, we had an injury which required us to evacuate one of the members of the trip. For the purpose of this story we will call him Andy...since that is his real name. We were on Clear Lake, a lake in which I had been on many times before and was very familiar with. After the injury had taken place and we made the decision to evacuate Andy, I prepared my gear for the journey out of Clear Lake and to the nearest marina which was about a 2 hour paddle. I took almost everything I needed with the exception of a map. Being as familiar as I was with the lake I felt confident that we would not need one.

As you could probably guess, we got lost. I had Andy in the middle of the canoe(groaning in pain) and Kaj in the back as we both watched the shoreline trying to make sense of where we were. It took us four hours to make it off the lake. Andy would be fine, but he made sure that he did not get hurt again the rest of the year for fear that Kaj and I would once again would be the ones to rescue him.

Jesus told Thomas "I am the way!" If the destination was to be with the Father, then Jesus boldly told Thomas that He was the map to follow if he wanted to reach the same destination. In this exclusive statement, Jesus is telling the world that without Him, there is no map, and with no map we cannot reach our desired destination; to be with the creator of the universe, the loving God of Abraham.