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I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life
Wherever someone knows that they are lost,
And cries for help to find the way back home,
And turns towards their father's house at last
You are their Way before they know your name.
Wherever someone searches for the truth
And tests each easy answer in its turn,
Stressing the question, pressing to the pith,
You are the Truth they cannot yet discern.
Wherever someone sorrows over death
Yet seems to glimpse a gate beyond the grave,
A living spirit in the dying breath,
You are the Life within the life they love.
You come to us before we ask or pray
Till you become our Life, our Truth, our Way.
Malcolm Guite.
One of the hardest things to deal with in our lives is the fact that we live in a temporal world. My mom died a few months ago and joined my dad in heaven. Those whom we love and love us will be separated from us one day, and everything we see will eventually fade away. As we age, we constantly hope to look and feel younger, but time will catch up with us. As difficult as it seems, we will witness the funeral of our loved ones or they will witness our funeral. When we see a beautiful flower, its beauty can only be captured in that moment. Two weeks later, that flower might be compost in the soil. Jesus offers us a look beyond the temporal life that we live. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We don’t have to wait for the death of a loved one to understand that everything is passing away in this world.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:1-6)
A deepening relationship with Jesus Christ is the path to the eternal. We can get a glimpse of the eternal by loving as we have been loved, giving generously of ourselves, forgiving as we have been forgiven, being thankful for everything we receive, and living life with joy in our hearts. We are Easter people because we live in the hope of the resurrection. We know that Jesus died for our sins and conquered death that we might live abundantly. Abundant life is not something we have to wait for, but is offered to us right now. In his Farewell Discourse, Jesus is telling us that he will soon be ascending to our God in heaven, but that we can get a glimpse of eternal life through faith, prayer, and action. John teaches a realized eschatology. Walk with Jesus in this life and the next and you will live the abundant life.
In Christ’s love,
Fr. Duncan
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