Four chapters before Jesus is to be crucified in the gospel of John, he tells his disciples that he will be going to where they cannot to prepare a place for them, but that he will come back for them so that they may be with him. They don’t understand, and we have the wonderful gift of Philip and Thomas, two of the disciples: Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied. So why are we reading this prediction of the crucifixion and resurrection after the fact, so to speak; I mean, we’re almost finished with the season of Easter, if you can believe that. Perhaps it’s because Jesus is about resurrection business: preaching life to the dead, being the way himself.

What sort of way, we might ask? I mean, John is giving us a lot to consider. We can hear many things in this way of Jesus - ask for anything in my name and I will do it; one who believes in me will do my works, and even more; whoever sees me sees the Father; no one comes to the Father except through me; do not let your hearts be troubled - trust me - you will not be forgotten; and I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. First of all, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and these words are a comfort....but what if they’re not, and you’re convicted by them (am I in, Lord?), or affirmed by them (I’m in, and am on the way, but I don’t know about that guy), or as professor and pastor William Brosend reflects, “Most of the time, God help us, we emphasize what we would like to hear - what’s in it for me, not what I can do; the search for incontrovertible confirmation, not trust in what we have already seen; wondering what our room in heaven will look like, not enjoying Christ’s presence with us; trying to decide who is in and who is out, rather than following the path of the One who is the Way....why do we so often hear ‘way, truth, life’ as a perilous affirmation fraught with exclusion rather than a suggestion for the disciples of Jesus? Could it have anything to do with the fact that calling the role is easier than following the leader?” (“Living by the Word: Sunday, April 20,” The Christian Century, April 8, 2008, p. 21). Luther said when God is revealed and seemingly at the most obvious - in the gospel, in Jesus - God is still hidden.

About a year ago, a regular columnist in the Missoulian’s Religion page explored and wrestled with questions about the nature of a merciful God and salvation: his name is Glen Moyer. Out of his long running piece, a workshop arose entitled “The Good News About Hell,” in which Pastor Moyer could not reconcile a hell full of those eternally separated from God with a merciful God. Thereafter, he was the brunt of scathing editorials and invectives from his faith community, all for suggesting that God’s mercy is bigger than we can know. A quiet little piece on the Religion page, penned by Rev. Barry Padget of First United Methodist, ask this question: why are we so sure about what we know? And suggested something for all of us, that the imagination of the faithful should be colored by a good and gracious God, and all our wishes should be: surely, not one left, Lord.
Rev. Dr. Charles Amjad-Ali of Luther Seminary, in an interview for a 2006 theological symposium at PLTS, said he came out of a Muslim background in Pakistan knowing Jesus, but finally being caught in two things: Jesus was born amongst the excrement of animals to love a world that hates God, or at least ignores God, and Jesus actually died on the cross, for the sake of that world, the whole world, the one that hates God. So discipleship for this man who has Muslims in his family looks like this: knowing the Way, the Truth, and the Life in the revelation of the Zoroastrian priests who brought gifts to the Messiah of God at his birth, knowing the Way, the Truth, and the Life in the radical hospitality of Christ and his table, and knowing the Way, the Truth, and the Life in the way of the cross, for the sake of the world, against the powers that be, for the neighbor.