Farewell

Homily for Friday of the Fourth Week in Eastertide

At this point in the Gospel of St. John, we reach the point of the beginning of the Book of Glory, the designation that has been given to chapters 13 through 21 of this Gospel. The first 12 chapters of St. John’s Gospel is called the Book of Signs (The Wedding Feast at Cana, The Healing of the Royal Official’s Son, Healing the Paralytic at Bethesda, Giving Sight to the Man Born Blind, The Feeding of the 5,000, Walking on Water, and Raising Lazarus).

After washing the feet of the apostles, Jesus names his betrayer and predicts Peter’s denial and then gives them a new commandment to love one another as he has loved them. Today’s text begins what is commonly referred to as his farewell address. In the context of this address, we hear yet another “I AM” statement; namely, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Jewish tradition talks about the way in which man must walk and the ways of God. Usually, when someone asks for directions, they might receive two different responses. Either they will be given a series of complex turns, or someone will say to them, “Come with me. I will show you.” This is what Jesus does for the apostles and for us. He does not simply give us advice and directions. He takes us by the hand and leads us. He does not tell us the way; he is the way.

When someone claims to be able to teach moral truth, character says far more than words. An adulterer who teaches the necessity of purity, a grasping person who teaches the value of generosity, a domineering person who teaches the beauty of humility, and irascible creature who teaches the beauty of serenity, and embittered person who teaches the beauty of love is bound to be ineffective. In Jesus, the moral truth is not simply a statement of what a person must do. In him we see the pinnacle of moral behavior.

In the Book of Proverbs, it is written, “The commandment is a lamp, and the teaching a light; and the re-proofs of discipline are the way of life.” However, commandments and teachings and reproofs do not give us life. Love gives us life. When Jesus claims to be life, that life is found in his love for us.

Jesus teaches us that no one comes to the father except through him. He alone is the way to God. In him alone we see what God is like, and he alone can lead us into God’s presence without fear and without shame. If we seek life, we must live in the presence of God.

This part of the farewell discourse of Jesus was occasioned by the comment by the apostle Thomas who claims he does not know where Jesus is going and that, therefore, he doesn’t know the way. What Thomas fails to understand and what we need to understand is that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.