Fr. John O’Callaghan: There are some marvelous synonyms for Christ: he is ‘the Bread of life’, ‘the Salt of the earth’, ‘the Light of the world‘; and today, Jesus says of himself ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’. He is telling us who he really is, elucidating his identity. But his words nonetheless suffer from misunderstanding.
Thomas gets off to a bad start when he says: ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way!’ He seems to think Jesus is planning a trip and it will be for him to simply follow the same route. But we’ve met Thomas before, ‘doubting Thomas’, who insisted on putting his fingers into the holes made in Jesus’ hands and side before believing in the resurrection. His shallow understanding of what Jesus means by ‘the Way’ shouldn’t surprise us too much. We might even share his incomprehension.
The ‘Way’ of which Jesus is speaking is the Way that leads to God the Father. Jesus is this Way because he brings us to the Father. He is one with the Father and at the same time he is one with us; this makes him an excellent means by which we can access the Father. He has identified himself as the Truth; he brings us into the truth of the One who is the Creator.
But Christ is not just a guide that we learn from and then go off better informed to plough our own furrows. No, one must belong to Christ, belong to the truth and live in the truth. Christ has also identified himself as the Life: through him we receive the life of the Father, eternal life.
Our role in this is to recognise Christ for who he is; to believe. His resurrection from the dead, his miracles, his teachings, and his fulfilment of the prophecies and traditions of Judaism help to recognise him and so enter upon this Way. Out of all the paths we take in life it is absolutely important for us to find this one, the ‘Way’ to God, by uniting ourselves with Christ, through faith.
The Acts of the Apostles recounts the action of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community, gifting it with varied charisms for the building up of the People of God; indeed they were sometimes called ‘followers of the Way’. The First letter of Peter refers to the early Christians as ‘living stones (in all their scintillating variety) making up a spiritual house where God lives’. So, ultimately, we can see that this ‘Way’ leads us into an intimate relationship with God, into the mystery of the Trinity, our incorporation in the divine life. It is actually beyond imagining.
And it shows one thing beyond question: that Christian life is about far more than morality, as some people seem to think of it. It is above all to recognise the love of God towards us, his calling us to a life beyond the one we currently experience, and where all shall be well and all manner of things will be well. That is the first and foremost message of Easter. ‘He is alive’ and we are called to share in that promised life, and to let faith have full impact in our lives. Such a hope can transform us and our world; it impels us to spreading the gospel of hope in word and deed. May we follow our ancestors in the faith who did just that, so that, 2000 years later, there are 2.6 billion Christians in the world today.