‘Many Questions – One Answer’

Sermon for 1 Advent, 2023
St Peter’s Lutheran Church, Port Macquarie, NSW

John 14:1-14  –  ‘Many Questions – One Answer’

Today is the first Sunday in the Church Year. It is a beginning. A time of preparation. Specifically, it is a time that the church prepares for the coming of Christ. The theme, of course, is preparation for his coming again in glory. But with Christmas nearing, our preparations for celebrating his first coming have become very much a part of our Advent celebrations.

This Advent, we are beginning a year-long journey through John’s Gospel. While many of the Sundays this coming year will follow the sequence of texts in John’s Gospel, we are beginning the journey with four texts from John that highlight the themes of the four weeks of Advent: Hope, love, joy, peace.

Today’s reading from John’s Gospel is about hope. The word hope is not mentioned, but you look carefully at the text, you will notice that hope runs throughout the text. There is the hope that Jeus is preparing a place for us, the hope (and certain expectation) that we will be with him forever. And there is the hope that in Jesus we have seen the Father and know the father. There is the hope that we are not lost but know the way home, and that Way is Jesus. There is great hope in Jesus’ words ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.’ Todays Gospel text is filled with hope, and that hope is centred upon Jesus Christ.

Some decades ago, when I was a young lecturer in theology, I had a lay student named Elizabeth who signed up to audit many of my classes. She would have been about 70 at that time. Elizabeth had lived a deeply troubled childhood, from which she never recovered. You see, Elizabeth, was a German Jew, and was a teenager during the holocaust, and survived two years in Buchenwald and other camps.

It is hard for us to imagine today the insane hatred of Jews that pervaded the world at that time. In Germany, and also elsewhere, people would avoid Jewish businesses.  Beginning with Kristallnacht they even began to attack Jewish owned businesses. People marched in the streets in protest against Jews, they deliberated organized their marches to run through Jewish neighbourhoods to effect maximin intimidation. They blocked ports when ships carrying Jewish refugees tried to land. This happened most famously in the US with one ship with over 1,000 Jewish refugees in 1939 blocked at every port until it was forced to return to Germany. People blamed the Jews, collectively, and individually, for everything that had ever gone wrong in the world. And in Germany school children were even taken out of school to participate in marches against the Jews to show that all generations stood against them. I know, it is hard to imagine this all happening. It was so long ago. But it really happened. And of course, when people are so hated and dehumanized, it becomes acceptable, justifiable, to even kill them. And while this was happening in the Middle East and is many countries, no where was it carried out so systematically than in Germany. And that is where Elizabeth lived. She survived, but never recovered. Never married, never had children of her own, never was able to hold down a full-time job. But she took solace in her faith, her faith in Jesus. For Elizabeth of not only Jewish, but a Christian, a Lutheran Christian. Not that that made any difference to those determined to hate her just for being a Jew.

As a result of her trauma, Elizabeth had some distinct quirks. One of theme was that whenever a question was asked in class (or in a Bible study or discussion), even a rhetorical question, Elizabeth would also jump in with the answer. And that answer was always Jesus. I had to learn to be careful in my lectures not to ask rhetorical questions. But the thing I remember most from the classes Elizabeth took with me is how often the simple answer ‘Jesus’ made sense.

When I consider today’s text, I remember Elizabeth. In today’s text both Thomas and Philip ask a question. They are very different questions. But if you look closely, you will see that the answer is the same.

First, Thomas’ question ….

Thomas is the disciple most likely to ask the obvious question on everyone’s mind but which no one else is willing to ask. In this case Jesus has promised that he will go an prepare a place for the disciples and all those who follow him. This is good news. Then Jesus adds rather matter-of-factly that ‘you know the way to the place where I am going (v. 4). Well, this is all a bit much for Thomas, because he is still trying to work out just where Jesus is going, and now Jesus seems to simply assume that they all know the way. So he points out the obvious: ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going so how can we possibly know the way?’ (v. 5). Thomas’ question prompts the words of Jesus that have become among some of the best known of the New Testament: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ (v. 6).

So now it begins to come together. Jesus is going to the Father, that is to say, to be with the Father in the heavenly kingdom.  And the reason Jesus assumes the disciples know the way to the Father is because Jesus himself is the Way.

So the answer to Thomas’ question, quite simply, is Jesus!

But now Philip jumps in with another question. And this one seems to be a bit off topic. Philip, seemingly satisfied about where Jesus is going and how to get there, is taken by the reference to the Father. ‘Lord’ he says, ‘if you could simply show us the Father, we will be happy.’ (v. 8).

At this Jesus becomes a bit impatient. ‘Really, Philip?’ he asks. After all this time together and after all my teaching your still do not know who I am? If you have seen me then you have seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father is in me. (v. 9). As I have said before, ‘I and the Father are one) (John 10:30). So how can you now ask ‘Show us the Father?’

So the answer to Philip’s question, ‘Could you please show us the Father?’ is also simply Jesus. Jesus is the way and Jesus is also the destination (the Father). The hope of the disciples, the answers to all their questions, is simply Jesus.

Whatever our trouble. Whatever our worry. Whatever our great question, Jesus is the answer. It is always all about Jesus.

And what is Jesus all about? Well, here’s an interesting tie in to our first Sunday in Advent, when our focus is not only on our hope in Christ, but on our preparation for Christ’s coming again. Just what is it that Jesus is focused on as we await and prepare for his coming? The surprising answer is that he is focused on us. As we now are prepare for his coming, we read in today’s gospel that Jesus is at this very moment preparing for our joining with him in the heavenly kingdom. He is busy preparing a place for us, for each one of us. Now that is a  truly amazing and surprising thought. One that fills us with hope, to know that the one for whose coming we prepare is busy preparing for us.

So let us begin this new church year with that image in mind; Of Christ, the Way to the Father, God himself in flesh, ascended to heaven and preparing a place for us. Amen.
Pastor Mark Worthing.