Which way is the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Before the Church was called “Catholic” and the disciples were called “Christians,” the early Church was referred to as “The Way” based upon Jesus’ response to Thomas; question, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through ME.

In a world that seems to be full of violence, hate, and exclusion of all kinds, many of us may be wondering, like Thomas, where God went and what the path is that we need to take in order to find God. Or many of us may be calling out “Show us God!” and demanding to see some proof in the world that God cares.

And so when we begin to wonder what kind of a God we have, we can look to Jesus. We can look to his teachings and look to his works. Look at the ways in which He proclaimed good news to the poor, released those who were captive, gave sight to those who couldn’t see, and liberated the oppressed. Look at the ways He fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, and visited the sick.

When we begin to wonder where God is, we can look into the faces of the last and the least and look for the people around us who are following Jesus’ way of life and sharing His love to a hurting world.

We often interpret this weekend’s Gospel to mean that many individual souls live in heaven, but what if, instead it means that the Father has space for many different ways of understanding Him, that the rooms are the different paths we take to find Truth? Could it be that God is more open-minded than we are?

When we wonder what way to go in order to find Jesus, we can look for the people and the places in this world that need healing and Jesus’ good news the most. “This is where you will find and encounter me,” Jesus is saying. “This is the way to God.” And Jesus doesn’t just end here. He continues with a commission for the disciples and for all of us to continue this work when he is physically gone from this earth. “Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”