Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:1-31)

Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life

 

* We watched the video clips below for visualizing the lessons of this sermon.

 

Aladdin - "Do You Trust Me?" Clip - YouTube

An Eaglet's First Flight - YouTube

The Eagle Mentality - Best Motivational Video - YouTube

John 14:1-31

 

The Gospel of John is often called the Gospel of Eagle. It is because this gospel was written from the view of an eagle flying high in the sky. Therefore, when we read the Gospel of John, we feel as if we are an eagle with wings soaring up to the sun. In the Bible, in addition, we can find a number of places where the image of the eagle is used. In Exodus 19:4, God says to the Israelites, “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Deuteronomy 32:11 also says, “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him.” An eagle’s nest is built on the top of a tall tree or a high cliff, and therefore, there is nothing more secure and comfortable than that for the eaglets. However, the young eagles cannot stay there forever. When the time comes, they should leave the nest and fly in the sky like their mother. They should also hunt food by themselves. It is because they are “eagle.” They were born to be an eagle. The nest is their temporary residence. If the eaglets don’t want to leave the nest, the mother stirs up the nest and pushes the young out of the nest. Only then, the young eagles find that they have two great wings, and begin to flap the wings.

 

We may understand today’s text in the same way. Jesus’ disciples had spent a long time together with Jesus. Now, Jesus himself became a “comfortable nest” for them. Every day, Jesus protected them, guided them, and fed them with food of life. Now, without Jesus, they couldn’t survive even a day. Then, Jesus is saying that he is leaving them. In John 13:36, Peter asked anxiously, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” This word caused a big trouble in the disciples’ heart. Now they are left in the world like “orphans.” However, this is not the case at all. In fact, the time has come for them to fly the sky like an eagle with two wings. Now it’s the time for them to soar toward God by themselves. The disciples had dragged Jesus down to earth, to the world. They wanted to make a nest there with Jesus their Lord. But Jesus lifts the disciples up to heaven, to God. There is their Heavenly Father and their true eternal nest, and there they live together with their Lord forever. Now the disciples should rise toward the eternal nest. For this, they should abandon their home in the world, and flap the wings that God gave to them.

 

First of all, Jesus said to the disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” This means that they should keep their hearts from worries and anxieties. Our heart is like a wall. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” And Proverbs 16:32b says, “One who controls his spirit is better than one who takes a city.” One of the different aspects of our faith is guarding our heart from various worries and fears. However, we are quite poor at this. Rather, we are used to being downhearted even with a small thing. Fearful thoughts sneak into our hearts easily. Worries and fears almost always dwell in us like an occupation force, and they trouble us day and night and dictate our lives in bad ways.  But Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” and he says, “Trust in God; trust also in me.” What should rule our hearts is not worries and fears, but our trust in God and Jesus. It is having God and Jesus at the center of my life. It is letting God rule my life. There is the word “mentality.” One of its definitions is “the characteristic attitude of mind or way of thinking of a person.” More simply saying, it is “a person’s way and attitude of thinking.” And this way and attitude of thinking is exactly reflected in the person’s real life. Therefore, we can say that mentality is the person’s way and attitude of life. In Mark 6, Jesus’ disciples were sailing in the middle of the lake at night and they met a strong wind blowing against them. Then Jesus walked on the lake toward them. Seeing Jesus walking on the water, they cried out because they thought he was a ghost. At a dark night and in the middle of a stormy wind, they saw a ghost walking on the water. It is so rightful for them to be terrified. But the Bible doesn’t say that their being terrified is rightful. It says that they were terrified because “their hearts were hardened,” and going further, because “they had not understood about the loaves.” Earlier, Jesus performed the miracle of feeding 5000 people with five loaves and two fishes. Through this experience, the disciples should have learned a new way and attitude of thinking, that is, new mentality of seeing the world with faith in Jesus. The Bible does not take their fear rightful, but something strange and unacceptable. It says that they should not be terrified even in this situation. It is saying that now the disciples have nothing to do with such words as “fear” or “anxiety.” Why? It is because they are God’s children and Jesus’ disciples. It is because they are eagles flying the sky. It is because they have the eagle’s mentality.

 

Jesus said to the disciples, “Trust in God; trust also in me.” When do we need trust? When an eaglet stays in the nest and lives on the preys brought by the mother eagle, it does not need to have “trust.” It does not need to have the eagle’s mentality. But when it leaves the nest, when it takes the risk of jumping off the nest into the new world, it should have trust. Jesus’ disciples should have such trust. We are all like an eagle that has jumped off the nest of this world, and is flapping its wings toward God. In this dangerous but exciting moment, we must wake up God in me and Jesus in me. What we must remember is that the living God is the only object of our trust. God wants to fill our hearts just with him alone, and God wants to be trusted in alone. When an eaglet jumps off its nest on the top of a high cliff, it is in the middle of the air. It has no other choice but flying in the air. When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, He led them into the wilderness without food to eat and water to drink, and to the Land of Canaan that was already occupied by fearful giants and strong fortresses. It was like a young eagle that has jumped off the high cliff without any safety gear. Why did God do so to his people? It is for letting them know that there is the Lord God alone, and there is no other beside Him. It is for training them so that they flap their wings only toward God. It is for teaching that only God can save them. Those who do not trust in God have peace in their hearts only when they put their feet on the ground. In their eyes, the life trusting in God looks dangerous and insecure. But in fact, it is the opposite. The life trusting in God is most secure, and even full of freedom and excitement.

 

Jesus also says, “Trust in me.” For what should we trust in Jesus? Of course, Jesus is the Son of God, and he himself is God. In its essence, trusting in Jesus may be the same as trusting in God. According to today’s text, however, trusting in Jesus is believing that Jesus is the only way leading us to God and he is the only truth revealing God to us. In knowing God, the disciples were like children. For them, God was still “a stranger whom they didn’t know well.” Disciple Philip asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” To the disciples as such, Jesus taught many things about God and His kingdom. Jesus explained them about who and how God is, how much God loves and is pleased with them, what God is doing to save them, what God is preparing for their future, what is pleasing to God, and so on. In order to expose God, and His will and love, Jesus emptied himself thoroughly. And he filled himself with God. In today’s text, Jesus says, “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well” (7). He also says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (9b), and “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (10). In this way, Jesus’ words and deeds are all the pure exposure of the Father in him. In other words, the goal of our faith is coming to God, seeing God, and knowing God through Jesus. There are countless “gods” in the world. But only the god whom Jesus testifies and reveals among us is true God. In addition, there are countless ways to salvation, to heaven, to happiness, and to life. But only the way through which Jesus leads us to God is the true Way to salvation, to heaven, to happiness, and to life. If God the Father is the “Object” of our faith, Jesus is the “Contents” of our faith.

 

In today’s text, Jesus gives several promises to his disciples who are left in this world. First, Jesus promises eternal home in God’s House. Verses 2-3 says, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” Jesus also promises that he will listen to their prayers and do whatever they ask in his name. Verses 12-14 says, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” Moreover, Jesus promises to send another Counselor the Holy Spirit to them. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth” (16-17a). “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (26). Lastly, Jesus gives them “his peace.” Verse 27 says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” When we meditate on each of these promises Jesus gave to his disciples, we can learn that it is truly an amazing blessing to the disciples for Jesus to go to the Father. According to Verse 28, Jesus’ going to the Father is not permanent separation but is “a short trip only to come back.” Even during this trip, Jesus continues to listen to the disciples’ prayers and communicate with them through the Holy Spirit. Jesus is in them, and they are in Jesus.

 

However, it is another matter for the disciples to enjoy Jesus’ being with them right now here on earth. How can we be in Jesus who is invisible? There are phrases occurring repeatedly in today’s texts. They are “loving Jesus” and “obeying his commands.” In Verse 15, Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commands.” He also says in Verse 21, “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” He says a similar word in 23. “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” Actually, this was the life of Jesus himself as in Verse 31b saying, “the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” Over time, an eaglet grows up and becomes an eagle. It happens as the mother’s image is already planted in the young eagle. What Jesus had done while staying with his disciples was planting the image of Jesus in them. Now the disciples had the mind of loving their Lord Jesus. Because of this, they remember Jesus’ commands, and obey them out of their love to the Lord. They have unceasing desire to be like the Lord, and because of this, they keep wanting, seeking, and imitating Jesus. Like Jesus loved the Father and obeyed His commands, they love Jesus and obey his commands. Through this, they attain a unity with Jesus much stronger than that they had while Jesus was in the world. They have Jesus, not with them but in them.

 

God gave us two wings. One is the Word and the other is the Spirit. These two wings open our eyes to see and enter the boundless territory of God. These two wings lift us up high to fly over the world of God and enjoy the glory. These two wings lift us even higher to the throne of the Father where the true eternal nest is set up for us. These two wings were given to us only because Jesus came down to us and he went to back to heaven. And these wings were given to us so that we may be led to God. So, let us think deeply about God the Father who Jesus revealed to us. And let us have this one hope and desire to see Him face to face.