Road to Easter -- Week 5

Recently, we had a very unique experience as we tried to find the way to our given destination.  While staying in a very ancient walled city, high on a hill, we were given a set of simple but specific instructions for reaching home.  Unlike most any other place to which I travel in my daily routine, this place held a unique quality -- there is truly only one way to get there.

This fifth week of Lent, the topic is: “I am the Way the Truth, and the Life”.

"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.'' -- John 14:6-7

Jesus explains to his disciples his crucial role in a relationship with God the Father, and even they cannot comprehend it at first.  "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" asks the blessedly filterless Thomas.  Jesus answers in his typical, straightforward, yet rather enigmatic way --  "I am the way..."

To this day, that answer still reverberates in our ears.  We climb the hill, ancient and steep and narrow (in a Smartcar, thankfully).  We have the directions in our hands, so simple and yet somehow confoundingly so.  We want more markers and more options and more input and yet the end point is where it is and we are where we are.

In this most meaningful of destinations, there is and only can be this one way.  And thank goodness that is the case.  On that trip and in this trip of life, there are so many obstacles and self-doubts and wrong directions that threaten to derail our way home.  We have the clear and simple directions of Jesus to lead us all the way there.  Now, we just need to follow them.