I AM THE WAY – SOTAS 23.08.

20

What does Jesus mean when he says to the disciples, ‘I am the

Way’? Jesus has just assured them that he will prepare a place for
them and is answering Thomas’s remark that they don’t know where
Jesus is going, let alone the way to follow.

Jesus is both signposting a pathway to the kingdom of heaven and

exemplifying a kingdom way of life on earth. At this point in his life
story Jesus is about to make his final journey along the pathway to
the Father, through arrest, imprisonment, torture and interrogation,
execution and burial. The Father will glorify Jesus and himself by
raising Jesus from the dead. The trail will be blazed, and forty days
later, Jesus will return to heaven, whence he came to earth, and
shortly after that at Pentecost, his followers will be baptised in the
Holy Spirit to empower them to follow that same Way. As the writer
to the Hebrews puts it: ‘By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-
giving way’ (Hebrews 10.20, NLT). The disciples will become
apostles and follow this path.

Jesus demonstrated the kingdom way of life during his ministry:

repent and be baptised; worship with God’s people and pray
regularly; depend on God for material provision; do not accumulate
wealth; treat all with kindness and respect; free captives; heal the
sick; raise the dead. In the Acts of the Apostles we see the
disciples do all these things, following the way set out by Jesus. In
fact, Luke describes the followers of Jesus as, ‘followers of the
Way’, before they are given the name ‘Christians’. We in our turn are
called to commitment to this way, and as Jesus said: ‘whoever
believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do
even greater things than these’. (John 14.12, NIV).

When I was preparing this brief reflection, a song came to mind

about walking 500 miles. I looked it up and found that the second
verse and the refrain would be a fitting declaration for a disciple to
make to Jesus:

When I'm working, [yes] I know I'm gonna be

I'm gonna be the one [man] who's working hard for you,
And when the money, comes in for the work I do
 I'll pass almost (sic) every penny on to you

When I come home, well I know I'm gonna be

I'm gonna be the one [man] who comes back home to you.
But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the one [man] who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door.

Jesus has a place prepared for each one of us: let us follow in the
Way, however many miles we walk, and humbly fall down at his
door, at the last coming home to him.