In the Gospel of John, in one of the most quoted verses in all of Christendom, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” This is something we often gloss over, or at least I do. But it is not a small statement. Here is some context for the passage:

“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. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The early Christian community was not a community of Christians. That word ‘Christian’ didn’t exist yet; they were merely ‘followers of the Way.’ And these early communities had a distinctive flavor to them which we as modern people might call apocalyptic. They expected Jesus’ immediate return to earth to establish his kingdom. This is evident both in the Scriptures and from other historical sources. These early followers were also embroiled in often difficult theological questions as they were trying to discover the right way to follow their savior (again, this is evidenced by Scripture and by history). Time wore on, and the community was replete with doctrinal disputes, and yet there was no return of Messiah. And so this fledgling group of Christ-followers had two burning questions: Where is Jesus, and what is the Way?

Regardless of your view on how Scripture came to be what it is, these are precisely the two questions we see Thomas voicing at the end of the Gospel of John. And in the context of when the book was penned and first circulated – the late first century – Jesus’ answer takes on an extra depth of meaning. If we may allow ourselves some artistic licensing in regard to capitalization (and the earliest manuscripts are all upper-case, so I think we may), we might edit the dialogue like this:

Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the Way?
I am the Way…

This is not some esoteric phrase. In the midst of serious questioning among believers about the nature of their religion – the nature of the Way – John tells us in no uncertain terms that Jesus himself is the Way. In modern language, this statement would be equivalent to Jesus saying, “I am Christianity.”

This is earth-shattering. There is no prescription of how to follow the path of the Way. There are no ceremonies or regulations given. The boundaries and definitions of it are Jesus himself. Those who walk in the Way will look like the one who is the Way. This is deeply offensive to my religious sensibilities, and I suspect, most others’ too. It breaks religion and establishes a someone, a God, instead.

But he doesn’t stop there. “I am the truth.” As John records, in a few hours Jesus is going to be brought before Pontius Pilate. And there will be an exchange between the Creator God and a Roman governor.

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews.

See how flippantly Pilate treats the matter of truth! And standing before him is the one who declared, “I am the truth”. Can’t you just see the jaded and cynical expression on the governor’s face as he mouthed those words? Let us not take such a blasé approach.

Where is it that we seek to find truth, that grounding from which we interpret reality? If we are Christians, our good Sunday School answer may be “in the Bible”; if we are scholars, our answer may be “in study”; if we fancy ourselves spiritual, our answer may be “in personal conviction”; if philosophers, “in reason”. There are many places we look to find truth. And none of these are bad, for I think there is much truth to be found in all these venues. Yet none of these is absolute: for where there is Scripture, there is misinterpretation, and where there is study there is error, and in conviction there is bias, and in reason there are flaws. We seek out truth in some set of rules, be they abstract or concrete, but the truth – the fullness of unfettered Truth – is not there. Where, then, is it? Jesus’ response is not to direct us to some higher revelation, but simply to say this: that the truth is not a function of the abstract, but a glorious Someone, a Someone with a smile and a heart and a consciousness. Truth is not merely personal; Truth is a person.

The answer to Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” is right in front of him, though he misses it: it is the face before him. If you and I seek that face, we will find ourselves approaching truth.

“I am the life.” What does Jesus mean by this? Consider what else he said about life, also from the Gospel of John (as I’m trying to keep this as contextual as possible).

To a crowd of people following him:

I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.

And to Martha, just before he raises Lazarus from the dead:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?

What is this duplicity of life and death? He cannot be speaking about physical life, for he explicitly adds “even though he dies”. And yet he also insists that anyone who believes in him will not die. There must be something deeper going on here. There is more here than can I can address, and more than I understand. But when God speaks about life and death, we must begin to take a more expansive view of the subject.

Though Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he did not raise Martha. She died, her bones were buried somewhere in Roman-occupied Palestine, and only God knows where they are now. Looking into her eyes with the incomparable divine love known only to himself and to his people who have tasted it, Jesus knew all this when he asked her, “Do you believe this?” And Martha responds, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” Martha believed, and so according to Jesus’ own words, she had life and would never die, and he then demonstrated this life by raising Lazarus from the dead. But what about Martha? Did he forget his promise? Did he forget her? And what of all the other saints and believers?

When Jesus speaks about life, and when he speaks about death, he is not referring, I think, to the physical operation of our cellular biology. If he were, he would be a liar. When God speaks of life in a spiritual sense, he is referring in some mysterious way to himself. Life – not functionality, but all the vibrancy and depth and realness which we scrape the surface of when we tell people to “really live life” – is bound up with God. To have life is to have Christ, and to not have life is to lack him. When he says he is the life, then that means all people may maintain that true life in him, whether they are physically dead or alive. And all people – physically alive or physically dead – may forfeit life by forfeiting God. Do not think of death as some kind of severe punishment, or limit it to someone receiving their just desserts, but it is even what it appears to be here in the physical realm: a cessation of being. There are those among the living who are already dead, and there are those among the dead more alive than the living, for wherever God is, he is sustainer of our being. It is that life which Martha had, which Lazarus had, and which is freely bestowed on God’s children through the grace of Jesus Christ.