I read the story of an explorer who hired a native Guide to take him deep into the jungle. After days of trekking, the explorer felt uneasy as the way became dense and difficult. He sensed danger. Finally, the trail disappeared altogether, darkness was setting in, and the explorer could contain his doubts no longer. He said to the Guide, “We’ve lost our way.” The Guide responded, “No. I am the way.”
Those were Jesus’ exact words to His disciples before He went to the Cross. He had just said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And since I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back to receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I’m going, you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where You’re going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man approaches the Father, but through Me.”
The pathway that seemed so clear to us all a few years ago has disappeared. Darkness is setting in, and we know that evil lurks in the shadows. But “The Way” is a Person. Safety has never been the absence of danger, but the presence of Emmanuel, “God With Us.” Whoever would have imagined that He makes paths in the sea or provides water in the desert. He who leads, provides. And He who provides, loves. And He who loves, keeps. And He who keeps, defends. His words to the disciples are spoken just as tenderly to us… “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Comments