Comfort on a Black Sabbath

While reading the Holy Saturday liturgy this morning, I was struck by the context for this oft-quoted text in John:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go to 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 the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

That verse is perhaps the most famous one Christians use to argue for the exclusivity of Christ for salvation. When a pluralistic culture offers the belief that there are “many pathways to the Divine,” we say, “No! There’s only one way! Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life!” We emphasize the exclusion and the exception – that no one comes to God the Father except through Jesus the Son!

It becomes a handy weapon for whacking the enemies of our evangelistic efforts.

But strangely, Jesus is not evangelizing the masses here.

He is comforting his friends.

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” Upon hearing of his soon departure (the pain of which would be felt most severely on that black sabbath after his execution), his friends were afraid. Where was he going, and how would they get there someday? What did this all mean, anyway? Their understanding of God had been so radically reshapen by their rabbi, that if he was to go away they worried about what faith they would have left to hold onto. 

The comfort Jesus brings is simple and relational: “you believe in God, so believe in me.” And, “if you know me, you already know God the Father.” All that’s necessary is to be friends with Jesus, to trust him, and you will find your way. The exclusion and the exception are not really the point here; the point is, being Jesus’s friend is all you need! If you have him, you have the Father, you have the kingdom future, you have it all.

All the mystery and the difficulty and doubt about who God is and what he is up to and how the teaching of the rabbi fits into all of it is assuaged by that one beautiful thing: friendship. 

“Don’t be afraid. You know all that you need to know of the Divine Father and his glorious future simply because you know me.”

Don’t be afraid.

Could it be that all our lives are about finding a simple friendship with Jesus that is the perfect, complete way to real hope in God and his kingdom future?

That the darkness of our doubt, failure, or pain is no barrier to the relationship that is all we really need to find our way, anyway?

That evangelism is simply enveloping others in this same friendship by loving them in the way of Jesus?

That would be something.