DAILY GRACE
May 8, 2020, Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Scripture: John 14:1-6
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Meditation
“. . . . so that where I am, there you may be also.”
This passage marks a transition in John’s Gospel. Jesus knows he will no longer be physically accessible to his disciples. But Jesus reveals that they will still have access to him, only in a different way. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus will be present in his followers. The disciples only partially understand this. They want to be where Jesus is. Jesus tells them that he will return and take them where he is. And Thomas, speaking for so many of us, said — “but we don’t know where you’re going, so we don’t know the way.”
Jesus responds to Thomas in a way completely different from the way the question was posed: no address, no directions. His response is himself. The place that Jesus wants to take us to is the Father. He is preparing us for direct contact with the Father. And the way to the Father is wherever Jesus is, because Jesus is always in the presence of the Father. I am the Way, Jesus says. Walk with me —- not around me, not ahead of me, but with me. I left you the example. Do what I did because that’s the way that will most securely lead you to me. Walk with me because I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life —- and I will lead you to my Father, “so that where I am, there you may be also.”
Prayer
Lord, I very much desire to go to the place you are preparing for me. Help me follow you more closely, especially when I want to go in a different direction. May I allow your life to grow in me, so that the Father’s dream might be fulfilled in me. Amen.
Contemplation
Lord, help me to follow your footsteps.