8 May 2020 - the way and his power

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Where I am going you know the way.

But like Thomas we don't feel like we know the way. We can't predict the future. We don't really know what is coming up ahead of us, no matter what direction we take. We emphatically do not have the future mapped out before us in concrete details. And yet we do know the way because Jesus himself is 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.”

The details we lack are not even important when compared to the revelation we have in Jesus. We may not know the outcome of this or that particular circumstance. But there is nothing about the path to the Father that we need to know that we don't have in Jesus. There are many particular truths that we do not have. But the truth that matters is ours in Christ. There are many things we do to preserve and enhance our lives here on earth. Yet we know that eventually there is no avoiding suffering, no way around our end in death. But now we see in Jesus a life that cannot be destroyed by death. Our call is to begin to follow this way, to know this truth, and to share in this life even here and now. It isn't everything we might have once wanted. Many of those details we cared about are still unknown. But it is everything we need in a way that ultimately surpasses those shortsighted desires of the past.

We ourselves are proclaiming this good news to you
that what God promised our fathers
he has brought to fulfillment for us, their children, by raising up Jesus,
as it is written in the second psalm,
You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.

By the resurrection the humanity of Jesus is enthroned as King. His enemies, sin, death, and the devil are defeated. From the right hand of the Father he makes reigns, and shares his victory and his Kingship with us.

and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth (see Revelation 5:10).

Are we availing ourselves of this victorious life? Are we aware that we are more than conquerors (see Romans 8:37)? We can be pitiful or powerful depending on our response to what Jesus offers us. It begins by believing that Jesus, not only about what he did and who he was, but about what he is doing and who he is. This gives us hope, not only for the last day, but for today and every day in between, as we walk in the way that Jesus himself is.

Ask of me and I will give you
the nations for an inheritance
and the ends of the earth for your possession.