Jesus’ Time Capsule

The Gospel reading this morning is part of what is known as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse. Jesus washes the feet of the disciples, eats with them, Judas leaves, and Jesus is predicting Peter’s betrayal as this conversation begins to unfold. I am reading beginning in chapter 13:33 through 14:14….

This week my daughter, Elizabeth, had to read a book about Time Capsules for school. One of the time capsules we read about is called the Crypt of Civilization at Oglethorpe University. It was sealed in 1940 and is set to open in 8113. It has all kinds of everyday objects in it, and they also put 800 books on microfilm. They describe these books as “authoritative books on every subject of importance known to mankind.” And, just in case English isn’t spoken anymore, they included a device to teach English so that they could translate the books.

The passage we read from John this morning is a difficult one to translate. Because Jesus is trying to comfort the disciples with things they know, houses and rooms and physical places, but he uses words that are not the specific word for houses and rooms and physical places to try to get them to understand that he is talking about something more.

The disciples don’t understand. Where are you going, Jesus? How are we going to get there? They are trying to understand Jesus’ words literally. But, Jesus is not talking about a place you mark on a map. Throughout the Gospel, location is consistently a symbol for relationship. Jesus doesn’t use the word that means house or dwelling. He uses the word for household or family. And then the word that we have translated rooms is the verb for “abiding” used as a noun. “In my Father’s family are many abidings.”

No wonder the disciples were confused, right? In my Father’s household, in his family, there are many abidings, ways of being or dwelling. The way we dwell on earth is not the only way to dwell. This state of being we know is not the only state of being. To know where Jesus is from and where he is returning is to know his relationship with God. Jesus is going to the Father, but he is not telling them about a geographical place. Jesus is talking about community, relationships. Jesus is going to be, to abide, with the Father.

“And you know the way to the place where I am going,” he says. “No, no we don’t,” says Thomas. “How can we know the way?” I can just imagine that the disciple are getting anxious. They are not thinking about a future life. The Jewish faith had no belief in an afterlife. Thomas is not asking about whether other Jews or people of other faiths, or no faith, are going to hell. Thomas is asking a practical question. Jesus says he is going somewhere and they are coming later. Where are you going, and how do we get there?

This conversation is happening at the Last Supper. Jesus will be arrested in the Garden that night. “Where are you going? How are we going to get there?” are practical questions, with some edge in them; panic is setting in.

Jesus assures them that they know the way, hodos. Because they know him, and he is the way. Just like in English, the Greek word for way,
hodos, can mean path or road OR it can mean way of life or practice.

Jesus is not trying to make an exclusive statement. He is trying to comfort. I AM the way, the truth, and the life. You know me; you know the way. No one comes to the Father except through me, through the way. He is not talking about getting to heaven. He is talking about abiding with the Father, being in God’s family. It isn’t about a destination or an accomplishment; it is about a way of living. “No one comes to the Father except through me” is a word of promise, not a prohibition. Jesus is reassuring the disciples; they have risked their lives to follow him and the risk is mounting by the minute.

Presbyterian pastor and theologian Frederick Buechner said of this passage, ” Some think of a Christian as one who necessarily believes certain things. That Jesus was the son of God, say. Or that Mary was a virgin. Or that the Pope is infallible. Or that all other religions are all wrong.

Some think of a Christian as one who necessarily does certain things. Such as going to church. Getting baptized. Giving up liquor and tobacco. Reading the Bible. Doing a good deed a day.

Some think of a Christian as just a Nice Guy.

Jesus said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). He didn’t say that any particular ethic, doctrine, or religion was the way, the truth, and the life. He said that he was. He didn’t say that it was by believing or doing anything in particular that you could “come to the Father.” He said that it was only by him – by living, participating in, being caught up by, the way of life that he embodied, that was his way.

Thus it is possible to be on Christ’s way and with his mark upon you without ever having heard of Christ, and for that reason to be on your way to God though maybe you don’t even believe in God.

A Christian is one who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and who has at least some dim and half-baked idea of whom to thank.
A Christian isn’t necessarily any nicer than anybody else. Just better informed.
(originally published in Wishful Thinking)

Jesus assures the disciples that, even though “the way” may be difficult, they have lived with him, and they know how to live like him; they know the way, and whatever they ask in his name, he will do it. Again, we need to go back to the time capsule and figure out what it meant to ask something in someone’s name, or do something in someone’s name. This was an expression that people used to say, “You are just like him.” He did that in his father’s name, or her grandmother’s name meant that you were reminded of the elder in what the child did. So, when we do or say something in Jesus’ name, we are doing or saying it in the way Jesus did or would. Bible scholar Ray Brown said, “To ask in Jesus name means to be in union with Jesus. To ask in Jesus name is, as Paul put it, having the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.” Whatever you ask, having the same mind as Jesus, will be granted. Eugene Peterson, the writer of the Message version of the Bible, encapsulates Jesus’ point in John 14 by saying, “Only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life.”

As we talked about what was in the Crypt of Civilization, Elizabeth and I started talking about what we would put in our own time capsule if we had one. And I began to wonder what Jesus would have put in one.

Bread and wine? Water? Seeds? Vines? Wool? But none of those things do well over a long period of storage. So, maybe Jesus would put pictures in the time capsule. Pictures of how he lived his life. And I realized something, all of those images are from stories. We have them.

Wednesday night during animate:Faith, we focused on why people read the Bible over and over again. And the presenter in the video talked about a Jewish tradition. When boys enter adolescence and they celebrate moving toward adulthood, one of the things that they are given is a boiled egg with Scripture carved into it. And she made the point that we don’t ingest other books like we injest the Bible.

Jesus told stories, that were written down and have been passed through history. And now it is our turn to injest them, and to live like Jesus lived. Jesus, who drew away and spent alone time with God, who went to the synagogue and Temple to worship, who met needs and healed wounds, who welcomed children and those with openness, who washed his disciples’ feet, is the way, our way. And when we follow the way, of “The Way” we are the time capsule. We are what Jesus wants the world to know about him.