Today’s
Gospel is made for times like this. The passage from John that we just heard is
part of what scholars call Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse.” It’s the intimate
conversation that Jesus has with his disciples on the evening that we now call
Maundy Thursday—during their last meal together. The meal where he washes their
feet like a slave would do. The meal where he offers them his flesh to eat and his
blood to drink. The meal before he is taken away to be crucified. After this
night, they will never be together in the same way again.
It
will never be the same again. These are the words that we dread hearing, aren’t
they? The
disciples’ questions are tinged with their dread for the future. Their thoughts
drown in uncertainty. Peter asks outright, “Lord, where are you going? Why can’t
I come with you?” Thomas worries, “If you are already gone, then how can we
find our way to you?” Philip frets, “Can you at least show us what it’s going
to look like?”
Jesus’ heart is breaking as he
watches them deal with the pain and grief that is filling their lives. He tries
to comfort them, to tell them that he isn’t leaving them alone, that he loves
them and that they will still be together somehow. “I’ve got this,” Jesus reassures
them. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust in me. You don’t
need to know the way. I am the way, the truth, and the life. You might think
that you can live life all on your own, that you can be in control of the
future, that you can hang on to things that are passing away. But you can’t. It
is through me, not on your own power, that you come to the Father.
It’s a shame how some Christians have
misinterpreted these words of comfort that Jesus speaks from the depths of his
pain and the depths of his love for us. They have made the caring words into
judging words. “Ya’
gotta believe in Jesus to be saved,” these preachers say. “Jesus says right
here in the bible, ‘You come to the Father only through me.’” But that’s not it
at all! As Frederick Buechner writes: “[Jesus] does not say the
church is the way. He does not say his teachings are the way … He does not say
religion is the way, not even the religion that bears his name. He says he
himself is the way. And he says that the truth is … the truth of being truly human as he was
truly human and thus at the same time truly God's. And the life we are dazzled
by in him, haunted by in him, nourished by in him is a life so full of
aliveness and light that not even the darkness of death could prevail against
it.”[1]
So often we Christians turn trust in
Jesus into belief in doctrines. We turn the richness of abundant life in God
into “sweet pie in the sky by and by” in heaven. Eternal life is not merely a
future promise, however. The risen Christ leaves the linear world of timelines and
maps behind. The risen Christ is everywhere at once, with us in each present
moment. He is by our side in our pain and in our joy right now. He is by our
side in the shadowy future that we have yet to experience. In Jesus’ loving
presence, we can put our trust. In Jesus’ loving presence, we will find the
life in life, as well as the life in death.
Like Thomas and Philip, it’s normal for
us to want more particulars, however. How will we know it’s Jesus who is with
us? How will we know our role in this new world? How will it all work? Jesus
tells us that in him, we have seen God. If we want to know what life in God
looks like, it’s right before our eyes in the story of Jesus’ life and death. We
see Jesus eat with sinners, welcome tax collectors and prostitutes, touch the
unclean, and call the little children to his side. We see him suffer and
sacrifice his life for a different kind of Kingdom, opposed to the powers and
principalities of this world. We see him die and yet still rise again. We hear
him say that the single new commandment that he has for us is that we love one
another. “Very
truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “the one who trusts in me will also do the
loving, healing works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.”
Where we see these works, yesterday, today and tomorrow, we find God and
recognize Christ in our midst.
Recently, Dr. Rachel Easterwood was
standing by the bedside of a patient struggling to breathe with Covid-19 in a
busy New York City hospital. The patient was alone, unable to speak, and
suffering. The doctor, who had trained as a classical clarinetist before going
to med school, had an idea. She called a musician friend of hers on the other
side of the country and asked her to play something and Facetime it through her iPhone for this
patient. All of a sudden, beauty and peace flowed into a room filled with fear,
pain, and the mechanical sounds of medical equipment. The music made such a
difference to this patient that Dr. Easterwood continues her ministry in the
midst of the Covid crisis. She has a network of musician friends—including a
pianist right here at U of L—who have volunteered to play whenever a patient is
especially alone or afraid. She just dials them up on her phone and places the
phone next to a patient. Transcending time and place, the music, like God’s
love, enters the nooks and crannies of our need. “It’s how we can hold [the
patients’] hands right now,” one of the musicians said.
In an interview, Dr. Easterwood explained
that when she first heard the music bring spiritual relief to a patient, all of
a sudden she felt that everything she had done in her life had led her to that
moment. Before, surrounded by death, she had felt helpless. Now, she mused, “If
I don’t make it, I’ve done what I’m supposed to do.”[2] She has also done what
Jesus asks of us: the work of love.
When I worry in the wee hours where
my life is going, perhaps the only way to find out is indeed to trust in Jesus—and
then to join the birds outside my window, pouring what I have left out into the
world like a song.
