Sermon preached at St. Alban's, Spirit Lake, on April 20, 2008
(Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A, BCP Lectionary)
by the Rev. Carl D. Mann

Texts:   Acts 17:1-15
Psalm 66:1-11 or 66:1-8
1 Peter 2:1-10
John 14:1-14

Do you remember the childhood board game of chutes and ladders? It’s where each contestant follows a path by rolling the dice and advancing step by step, slowly traversing the board to reach the final destination. Now occasionally, by chance, a contestant may either get to advance rapidly by climbing a ladder or retreat just as quickly because they slipped down a chute. These chutes and ladders are scattered about the board; some small, some slightly bigger. And right near the beginning is the longest ladder offering the largest shortcut to the top tier but between the top of that ladder and the finish line is the longest chute presenting the largest catastrophe that will land you somewhere near the beginning of the path.

Do you all have that image in your head? OK, forget about it for now except for the winding path. You see, there is no shortcut to heaven. There is nothing that we can do to avoid the winding path that we call life. Granted, some people’s life-path is shorter than others but the fact remains that we have to follow the path even though we are unable to see where it leads.

But as Christians, we have remarkable insight because with Jesus, we know where the path leads. How’s that? As we look past him and see the first bend in the road, obscuring our vision, we, like Thomas, say, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? To which Jesus replies, “I am the way! I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

OK, so now we know where we are going. We are going to the Father. But as we continue to look past Jesus, we are still a little skeptical about the way or better said, "How are we going to get there from here because all we see is a path called life without any clue as to what we are going to encounter between here and there?"

But that’s our mistake. We keep thinking that the road is the way, and Jesus is saying, “No, I am the way!” Jesus is the road map. He is our compass. He is our GPS navigation system. All we have to do is move forward, keep our eyes fixed on him, and he will guide us and deliver us to the Father. That is his promise to us. In fact, he has already been there, and has prepared a special place for each and every one of us. A place to rest in peace after the current leg of our journey is complete.

Now along the path we are periodically going to see ladders reaching upward. Remember the ladders? Looking up, we see what appears to be a path similar to that upon which we are walking. Hey, wait a minute. We’ve already taken one hairpin curve to the left and another to the right. If we climb this ladder, we can save some time, maybe get a head of the game, so to speak. So off we climb. But when we get to the top of the ladder, the path looks pretty much the same no matter which direction we look. Do we go left or right? We don’t know because we’ve left Jesus behind. We are lost! Jesus is the way and we can’t find our way. It doesn’t occur to us to climb back down the ladder. And if it does occur, we decide against it because we are ashamed to admit that we made a mistake in climbing the ladder. So we choose a direction and walk aimlessly up or down the path, until eventually we step in a hole and descend precipitously to the bottom of a chute where we land in a heap still not sure what to do or which direction to go. Now hold onto that thought for a minute. We’ll come back to it. Just remember that it is unwise to be tempted by a ladder. Remember, there are no short cuts to heaven. Ladders may appear to lead upward but without Jesus in front of us they will ultimately lead us in the wrong direction.

Now there is something that we have to know about when we make the decision to follow Jesus. Jesus is the way but his way includes the way of the Cross. What’s that? Sounds painful! Why would we want to follow anyone who is going to lead us to pain? If that’s the case, we may as well try a ladder or two and maybe we’ll get lucky. No you won’t because there are no short cuts to heaven!

The Cross does not lead us to pain but rather leads us through pain. Jesus suffered the pain of Cross so that he, as God incarnate, could fully appreciate what we go through in life. He underwent the feelings of loss and abandonment in order to fully understand what separates us from the Father. But he overcame the separation by suffering and dying on the Cross, and being raised from the dead to a new transformed life. This is why he is the way because he has been there and done that. If we follow him, we will not avoid the pain and the suffering but he will help us get through the pain and the suffering, to the other side, so that we may continue along the path toward the Father. That is the beauty of the Cross. It is a focal point that enables us to keep our sights on Jesus so that we don’t lose our way.

Now, if we happen to stumble and fall down a chute, and I guarantee that we will fall because even when we follow Jesus we look away now and again, maybe at the temptation of a ladder or maybe because we just aren’t paying attention. But when that happens, guess what? At the bottom of the chute, when we pick ourselves up and knock the dust off, we’ll realize that Jesus is there, and that it was Jesus that picked us up and is knocking the dust off of us, and then he says, “Come, follow me”, and leads us again in the right direction as if nothing happened.

Now go back to our previous thought at the end of our ascent up the ladder and the descent down the chute. Guess what? If we admit that we were wrong in taking the ladder, and intend not to be deceived by the allure of anything other than the promise of the Cross, we will see that Jesus is there at the bottom of the chute ready to lead us up the path again as if the event with the ladder never occurred. It’s that simple.

Now this may be an oversimplified way of looking at life but what better way to be a child of God than to look at life as child’s game.

Jesus tells us that he is the way. No one comes to the Father except through him. There are those out there in the world who may have a vision of God or even see God in the distance but Jesus tells us that if you want to be in a relationship with the Father as the Father intended for us to be then the only way to get there from here is through him. Jesus is the way, and his way is the way of the Cross. I don’t care what kind of new-age, psycho-spiritual, Gnostic garbage Oprah is spewing on the airwaves or the internet, we do need to cling to the old rugged cross because to lose that grip is to distort our focus, and to distort our focus is to lose the way.

Jesus tells us that he is the truth. There are no pluriform truths in this world. Jesus is the revealed Truth of God, the turning point in history by which God became one of us in order to show us the way to become one with Him. Anything in this world that has some ring truth to it finds its source in the Truth, which is Jesus.

Jesus tells us that he is the life. In him there is no death because he conquered death. In him there is no sin because he conquered sin. In him there is no separation between us and the Father because he has paid the price on the Cross once and for all to obliterate any wall of separation that we may erect along the path of our lives.

Now there are those out there who say this is an exclusive and narrow-minded way of looking at God. There are many ways to find God. All paths lead to the mountain top. But I say this is the most inclusive invitation ever offered. And all paths lead to Jesus, and no one comes to the Father except through him. God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son to the end that all that believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. This invitation is given to everyone but we have to make a choice to follow Jesus along the path of life.

If we choose to follow Jesus along the Way in Truth to the Father, then we will have eternal Life with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is his promise. That is our faith. That is our hope. Gloria Patri