I’ve always been afraid of corn mazes. You can’t see the way to get out. And there are lots of dead ends and who knows how long it will take to navigate through all those twists and turns. It’s scary! I think I’m going to write a book called, “Life is a Corn Maze” because we are often in places where we do not know where to go. Or how to find the way out. Or what is at the end of the road. This can be a scary place to be. It is right now a scary place to be.
This experience creates a question that burns in us in whatever stage of life we find ourselves in. We heard this question tonight in the reading from the Gospel of John. This is a question our youth ask as they wonder about further education and jobs. With so much ahead of them there is much to navigate. It’s a question those who are in transition ask as they face new challenges. In many ways our current public health crisis has put ALL of us in the same boat – in the same unchartered waters – with the same scary uncertainty and asking the same question: How can we know the way?
When this question was first asked of Jesus it was the night before he died. It was a fateful night. It was a pivotal moment. Much like the moments we face in our lives. There are so many ways this could turn out. They wondered: How will it end and which path to take?
Jesus could tell the disciples were freaking out a bit. Of course they were. Is Jesus going to die? Are THEY going to die? He’s promising them a home where they would be safe. But where is it? How do they get there?
“You know the way to the place where I am going.” Jesus said. And this prompted the question for tonight: We don’t know where you are going, so HOW CAN WE KNOW THE WAY?
Indeed how can we know the way? The question is a burden. It’s overwhelming sometimes. It feels overwhelming for all of us right now.
As with all the questions that were asked of Jesus, he does not provide an easy answer like you might get in confirmation class or a Bible study that focuses on correct doctrinal answers. He does not provide the kind of answers our politicians and medical experts are trying to give us to alleviate our concerns and panic. He does not provide the kind of answer that immediately takes all our fears and uncertainties away. But Jesus ALWAYS responds to our questions and struggles. He DOES something to us and for us when we ask questions of him and need some reassurance.
In response to the question of HOW CAN WE KNOW THE WAY he does not provide a roadmap. He does not throw a Bible at us and say, “Here read this. It will tell you how to get there and once you figure it all out, you’ll know the way.” He invites us to pray always and we can find some solace in our prayers when they help us to turn to him. But in response to the disciples’ question HOW CAN WE KNOW THE WAY, he does not turn them back to themselves to rely on their own ability or inability to decipher answers to their prayers. No. He gives us himself. “I am the Way.” “I am the truth” “I am the life.”
Jesus gives us himself. He is our only way in a world with so many ways we could go. He is the only truth that matters in a world where we don’t know what to believe. He is the only life that can never be taken away from us. And to all of us hunkered down, not knowing what lies ahead, he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in me.” As much as we want a clearly mapped out timeline for our lives and for this crisis, he gives us more. He gives us himself. His love marks the way. His love guides us with the truth. His love brings us to life.
There is prayer – it is without a doubt my favorite prayer. It has comforted me in dark times when I lost the way and didn’t know where to go. We use it for Evening Prayer. We prayed it together the last few weeks when we gathered here. Pray it with me now wherever you are. Pray it during this time of crisis. Pray it at the end of the day. Pray it at the beginning of the day. Let it remind you that whatever happens, wherever you go, whatever questions still linger, Jesus is your way, your truth, your life.
O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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