Apologetics

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There are no Loopholes: Just Jesus

Jesus held this big bash for his last night spent with all of his disciples. It had been planned for years--for centuries. For longer than this group had been together. Even the way the feast came together was amazing. Jesus told a couple of them, “Head into town and when you see the water boy carrying his pitcher follow him. When he gets home, tell him, ‘This is where Jesus is holding his shin-dig tonight.’ The water boy will show you a big room. Prepare for the bash in that room.”
Jesus and the twelve reclined around the spread. And what a spread: roast lamb, a vegetable plate, hard tack biscuit, and a little wine to wash it all down. As they ate Jesus attempted to get some last points across to the boys and to make sure they were all on the same page. But from the somberness of the evening’s conversations and Jesus himself, these guys didn’t grasp the point. Some egos were crushed. So, to kick the point home on their coming mission, Jesus strips to his boxers--the ones with the little red hearts-- and grabs a dish rag. He takes an empty salad bowl and fills it from the ice water pitcher. He proceeds to wash the disciples’ feet. Probably some hadn’t washed their dogs in days. Jesus boots his point deeper by washing Judas’s feet. Judas, who has sold Jesus out to the Pharisee thugs for a beggar’s wage. Finished with this lesson, Jesus dresses and takes his seat.
Jesus, as our text points out, tells them once again that he is departing. He is going to the Heavenly Father to prepare some luxury suites and coming back for them. After three years you would think that the guys finally would see the light, but
they don’t. Thomas--good ol’ Thomas, asks Jesus to show them the way. They would gladly follow. (Thomas earlier in the gospel moans to the group that if Jesus is going face death by going to the city where Lazarus lives, then the whole group ought to go and die too. Later, after Jesus’ resurrection, Thomas will forever be labeled a ‘doubter’ when he requests to touch the nail holes in Christ’s hands.)
Because Thomas misunderstood where Jesus was going or how he was to follow, he asked Him for the way. Then Jesus told them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus is the way. While he walked around the country with the disciples, they didn’t doubt as to where he was going--they just physically followed him. They ate where he ate from places like a Pharisee banquet, a wedding reception, some hillside lunches, and wheat field pick and carries. Where he slept, they slept; where Jesus walked, they walked. He was their way.
Jesus is their way spiritually. He performed miracles and they witnessed them. He turned water into wine as fast as it was poured in and dipped out. Hurricanes were calmed as the boat was about to be swamped; tons of fish caught where all night nothing was of net gain. Five thousand men and their families fed with two goldfish and five Hostess cupcakes--twelve baskets leftover so each disciple carried one back to Jesus. All these miracles and more that they personally witnessed and took part in--Jesus was their way spiritually.
Jesus is the truth to the disciples. He was the truth as it pertained to the Father. Jesus lived the truth as God intended--a man of integrity. This concept of the truth is derived from the character of God. The truth that God is love and loves man. The Heavenly Father desires a relationship with man. God just wants his love reciprocated. God’s truth is that when we return his love through accepting his son Jesus and his death and resurrection, we’ll be with them forever!
Jesus is the life. Jesus is the genuine life. He lived life to the utmost in God. As Jesus lived this life the disciples saw what God could and was willing to do through them for the unsaved world. They needed to allow the Holy Spirit to flow freely through them; they would be servants as God intended and as Jesus modeled.
Film star W.C. Fields spent his last years in a sanatorium. He abused alcohol. This abuse took its toll and ruined his health. One day when a friend went to visit, he noticed Fields in his chair reading the Bible. “Why are you reading the Bible?” the friend inquired. Fields looked up and replied, “Looking for loopholes.”
Many people today try to find their way in this world everywhere but where the true way in life can be found. They believe Budweiser is king and turn there searching for a path to a happy life, but only discover a happy hour--if even that. Miller beer offers the high life--of course it looks high while lying in a gutter. People turn to Buddha but his belly and his always lying down on the job seems to get in the way of getting to the truth in this life and the one after. People look to Hare Krishna to lead them to nirvana, but he sounds to close to hari-kari. People today turn to all types of drugs that promise the way to a great life, but these lead to death.
The only answer is Jesus Christ. Two thousand years ago when he first told his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” His words are still true today. For us Jesus is the way. He is the only road to the Heavenly Father. Jesus may point the way (and many times it may feel like he just points) but he also takes us on the way. I believe he leads us like this:
When I was picking up my mail in the Pennville Post office, a stranger came in to get his. He turned to the postman and said, “I’m new around here. I need to find the vegetable farm in Center. I have no idea where that is at.” An old timer spoke up, “If you turn right here, go two blocks. Turn at the house with the broken front porch--but not the one with the sagging roof. That’s a right. Go that way until you see Dexter Manley’s garage, turn left. Or is it a right? Anyway, turn there. At the next corner turn left. Stay on that road until you come to Center.” The stranger said, “Thanks,” but looked entirely lost. A young guy just heading out the door told the stranger, “Hey, I’m going that way, just follow me and I will take you right where you need to go.”
I believe this is what Jesus meant by his telling us, “I am the way.” He isn’t just going to give out a bunch of crazy directions that don’t make sense--He will take us by the hand, he walks beside us all the way. He will even carry us if the need arises. Jesus is the way.
Jesus is the way to the Heavenly Father also through his example of the truth of the life that he lived. Jesus is the truth. God wants us to worship him in the truth. We must base our relationship with God on the truth of His word--the live version of Jesus and the written version, the Bible. He lived this truth--the life of integrity. In all of his dealings from his compassionate ministries to the debates with the Scribes and Pharisees, he kept his integrity. Even when washed the disciples’ feet. Even when he faced death. Jesus tells Pilate later in the story, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate then asks, “What is truth?” We are not told in the narrative if Pilate asks this question with a lump in his throat or with a sneer, but since he didn’t use the article “the” which points to Jesus as “the” truth we can gather he wasn’t interested in Jesus. Pilate leaves the room as soon as he asks. See, Pilate came from the wrong belief that a man got by in life with his wit, the right friends, and a sharp sword. But no matter which way he stated the question, the answer, the truth, stands there. He stands there.
This truth is living for God, respecting Him and through Jesus, doing God’s will with integrity in all of your actions. In truth, your life becomes a life lived for God and not man.
Jesus is the life. A life in Him brought on by grace from God. It is a life that saves you from the ultimate destruction in a devil’s hell but leads the way to the truth of a life lived forever in the glory and for the glory of God. Life lived eternally in the presence of the Heavenly Father and his Son in Heaven. You must remember that even those in hell will live forever--just without any presence of God.
Today you can find salvation in Jesus Christ. You don’t have to leave here lost on the wrong way in life; blinded by the world’s offering of truth that is based on the devil’s lies; you can have life--life to the fullest in Jesus--and not full of the world’s offerings. Stop making your way to a midnight raid of the fridge to attempt to fill physically what can only be healed spiritually.
Today, you can accept Jesus. Ask Him to come into your life--let Him become the way, the truth, and the life for you.
Through Jesus, find God’s purpose for your life.
Pray. Talk to God. All of the time. And like Samuel, in the middle of the night when you wake, don’t switch on the TV. Ask God, What do you want, Lord? Here I am.”
Read the Bible. This is God’s special love letter to you--His Holy Word. Search it for answers to life. Ask the Lord to direct the Holy Spirit to guide you as you discover the way, the truth, and the life contained in the pages.
Make disciples. Jesus told the disciples before He ascended into Heaven to “go and make disciples.” Tell others your story about what Jesus did and continues to do in your life. In making disciples, continue to live a life worthy of the Lord. He sent his only son to die on a cross and shed his blood in payment for your sins.
The life you find in Jesus today is the very life you’ve longed for you whole life. Accept Him today. Come to the altar or pray where you are at--ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins. Tell him you are sorry. Tell him you want to change and be like him. Believe he forgave you. And as you leave, tell someone what Jesus just did for you. Accept him today. Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life. Get with him and go on the way to the true life today.

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