5-13-14 - I Know a Place

“I know a place,” sings Mavis Staples,
“Ain't nobody cryin', ain't nobody worried; ain't no smilin' faces, lyin' to the races…
I’ll take you there.”

“And you know the way to the place where I am going,” says Jesus.

Do we? Do we know how to get to that place where pain and anxiety and injustice are no more, where “sorrow and sighing will flee away?” (Isaiah 51) Thomas surely didn’t.

“Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’”

In a relational system like the Christian faith, everything – places, routes, truth, even life – comes down to a person. And not just any person – the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we claim was the humanly embodied Son of God. More than following a way, assenting to a truth, living a life, as Christ followers we are invited to know Jesus. Knowing Jesus is the Way to know God most fully. Knowing Jesus brings us into a relationship with Truth. Knowing Jesus allows us to fully live that abundant Life he promised.

Of course, scholars have, do and will argue about how exclusive that next sentence was intended to be. Did Jesus really say that, and what did he mean? I just focus on what he said after that: “If you know me, you will know my Father also.” Jesus said he was the Way. Best? Only? Fastest? I don’t know. This is the revelation I have received, so this is where I rest. I seek to know the fullness of God by allowing Jesus into my life in relationship, in conversation, in guidance and sensing and love. If I ever know Jesus well enough, I could explore other spiritual ways. Certainly I can appreciate them, but this one is deep enough for me.

If we’ve grown up with the notion that God is very close, like a grand-dad sitting in his rocker, then Jesus’ proclamation might have little power. But if, like his hearers, you’ve been taught that God is far and too impossibly holy to be known – then you can understand how radical it was for Jesus to proclaim that God was knowable through knowing him.

How do you know Jesus? Through prayer? From books? Stained glass windows? Movies?? Bible study?
How well do you want to know Jesus? I sometimes feel I hold him at arms’ length… too scary somehow.

I believe that if we say to God in prayer, “I’d like to know you more,” that the Spirit will begin to reveal God to us. I don’t know in what way – if you offer that prayer, you might want to keep a prayer notebook to write down whatever you experience in coming to know God better.

I do believe God wants to be known. That is why Jesus came like us – so we could at least recognize him enough to draw near. And when we draw near to that place… we find God.