I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life

HOLY WEEK DEVOTIONAL – THURSDAY, MARCH 28th

Pastor Randy Jones

Today’s Reading: John 14:1-11

Jesus and His disciples are in the upper room, and tensions are high. Toward the end of John 13, Jesus has called out Judas as a traitor and Judas has left the room, Jesus has told the other eleven men that He must leave and they can’t go with Him, and Jesus has told Peter that very soon Peter will deny Him three times. After spending every day for the last three years with Jesus, giving up everything to follow Him, we can only imagine the pain and confusion these men must have experienced.

Jesus knows this, and in John 14 begins to offer comfort. Though He’s the one heading to the cross, He’s the one facing agony, He’s the one seriously troubled, He looks out for and cares for His friends. But before we go there, let me ask you, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, are you experiencing trouble, heartache, or pain? Have you been betrayed, abandoned, or otherwise mistreated? Are you disappointed by family, health, or work? We live in a fallen world, and so one or more of these are true of all of us at various times in our lives. And just as Jesus offers comfort to His original disciples, so He offers it to us.

Now as you read John 14:1-11, you’ll see the encouragement Jesus is giving. He tells His disciples to not let their ‘hearts be troubled’ and to believe in Him as much as they believe in God the Father. Later, Jesus strongly emphasizes His unity with the Father, saying “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also,” then “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” It had to be amazing for the disciples to know that the same power, the same goodness, the same authority they understood in God the Father, they could know was also absolutely true of Jesus, God the Son.

But perhaps the most comforting, and almost surely the most profound truths that Jesus presented to His disciples are found in verses 2-6. Jesus tells them the reason He must leave is to prepare a dwelling place for each of them in His Father’s house, and that He will return to take them home with Him for eternity. As He says this Jesus points them to the ‘way’ that all of this happens. When Thomas expresses confusion, Jesus clarifies that He is way: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (vs. 6)

Jesus is heading to the cross. Jesus is about to pay the penalty for the disciples’ sin, for your sin, for my sin, for the sin of all. Jesus is about to defeat death by rising from the dead. That’s why He’s the way, the truth, and the life. That’s why He can prepare dwelling places in the Father’s house for all who believe and follow Him. And as with the disciples, that’s why we can also be comforted and encouraged.

Additional Reading: Matthew 26:17-75; Mark 14:12-72; Luke 22:7-71; John 18:28-19:42