Sunday, April 20, 2008 - John 14:1-14

Christ is risen!! He is risen indeed!! Alleluia

Christ is the way and the truth and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through Him. That statement is offensive to many in our world today. Churches like our own have been repeatedly criticized for daring to say that we possess the one and only truth. We are called arrogant and intolerant of other faiths and beliefs. The reality is that they are the ones who refuse to listen to the evidence which has been presented.

We are attacked from both sides. There is the liberal “Christian” community who exercise extremely low doctrinal standards – whichever way the wind blows, that is where they are going. (There are even some churches which have a weather vane on the top of their steeple instead of a cross. I am not making this up. I have seen it with my own eyes. And it is the perfect symbol for them.)

For us who desire to deal in the realm of truth, it is very difficult to have a meaningful conversation with someone who has no interest in having a meaningful conversation.

On the other side, the truth of Christ is attacked by the Post-Modern, Charles Darwin believing religious fanatics whose devotion to secular humanism is at a level rarely seen in even the craziest cults – these guys have worked to strip away as much as they can from Christ’s Church, plant doubt, call us names, and create an environment where God’s children are viewed as embarrassingly naive, or, at least, unsophisticated.

And whenever the truth is being proclaimed, they will shout it down and act like the Pharisees did with Stephen. They will plug their ears, and raise their voice for fear of being confronted by the truth of the Word of God.

The world around us has done its best to convince the masses that, if there is a heaven, there are certainly alternate routes to get their – and Christ and His Church are merely one way to know God (whoever or whatever that may be). We have even been told that Christians, Moslems, and Jews worship the same God.

I am sorry, but the living God is Triune. The Moslems, Jews, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, and every other sect or cult may recognize some divine force of nature with similar characteristics as God the Father, but the Father is not revealed other than through the Son – Jesus Christ.

Christ is the only Way to the Father. No one comes to the Father except through the Son. The only way to know the Father is to know the Son. Jesus says, “If you really knew Me, you would know my Father as well.”

Our purpose in life is to know Christ -- everything else is sideline work. We generally get our first introduction as we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Through the years we grow in our knowledge by hearing the words of Christ spoken in our church and in our homes. Then we experience the intimate sacramental union with Christ here at the Lord’s Table. As Peter says in our Epistle lesson, “you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Jesus says in John chapter 6, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you . . . For My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in him.”

This is a hard teaching for our skeptical world, just as it was a hard teaching in the days of the disciples. All the way back to Adam and Eve, mankind has desired to be the creators of their own destiny. That is not reality.

The reality of our existence is that to know and believe in Christ is the only way to know our Father in heaven. The reality of this life is that there is no life apart from Christ. Through Him all things were made, and through Him heaven’s door has been opened to us. And one day He will take you out of this life to be with Him. That was His promise to the disciples, and that is the promise of Easter for each of us. We know the Way to eternity. We know the Way to the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Jesus Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Life. Amen.

Christ is risen!! He is risen indeed!! Alleluia

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