I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
God sent John the Baptist to repeat the cry of Isaiah to "make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (see John 1:24, Isaiah 40:3). Naturally, it sounded as though he were talking to us, about all of the things we would need to add and remove from our lives and our society to be ready for the coming of the Lord. And he was inviting us to get ready. Yet it seems that the final plan for highway maintenance was not to be carried out by us. Rather, Jesus himself was to be that smooth and level way. He was the way by which God came to humanity and by which humanity ascended to God. This is why he was like Jacob's ladder, on which angels ascended and descended (see John 1:51). It made sense that only Jesus was a way that could truly lead to the Father. All other paths were limited by earthly horizons and terrestrial gravity. Only the one who united human and divine nature in himself could be the bridge between heaven and earth.
Jesus was the truth, not merely an abstract and unrelated collection of facts, nor merely even an accurate assessment of how things were in the world, but rather the truth that could set individuals free (see John 8:32). What sort of truth had the power to do more than entertain or inform but could actually transform human hearts and minds? It was the truth of who God was and the fact of his absolute fidelity to his promises. A related idea was described by Paul when he said "all the promises of God find their Yes in him" (see Second Corinthians 1:20). He was therefore proof, not just of any truth in general, but of the truthfulness of God, and therefore of the reality of his love and of his mercy. And this proof was something on which one could base a transformed and renewed life.
Jesus did not merely come to give life, as a doctor might rehabilitate a patient and then release then back to their old life in the world. Rather he came to be the very source of life for his followers, on whom they would ever after depend. We saw this idea expressed in the analogy of the vine, where Jesus himself was the vital source of the energy that enabled the branches to bear fruit. But Jesus did not insist on dependence on himself for egotistical reasons. Rather, he was pointing to a mode of life and a realm of existence that was higher than the biological. He was inviting his followers to share in his own divine life which he himself shared with the Father and the Spirit. This was a life of communion, consisting above all in relationship, and was not something one could have a private possession in an isolated life in the world.
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
The Father sent Jesus to reveal the truth of his heart for his people. For too long people had misperceived this heart as angry, petty, and vengeful. Jesus himself would demonstrate beyond all doubt that it was a heart defined above all by merciful love. In order to lead us to the Father Jesus invited his followers to place their faith in him as the one through whom the Father was revealed. This was necessary because the reality of the Father revealed by Jesus was not immediately obvious or self-evident. Discovering it required changing the course of one's life so as to place it on the way that was Jesus himself, directed by Jesus as truth, and fueled by Jesus as life. The goodness of his works made the case for why this was desirable. And yet we still often accept other ways, truths, and promises of life instead. Let us reject these substitutes and seek the fulfillment of all of our desires in the Lord where and where only they can truly be realized.
I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the Gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you
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