No One Gets to the Father Apart from Me!

The Departure

After Jesus had washed His Followers’ feet He said, “Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. Where I go, you are not able to come.”

Where is He Going?

A little later Peter “asked, ‘Master just where are you going’” A short time later Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where You’re going.” Jesus words were unsettling to these men and likely their fellows. His answer didn’t seem to address the question. “I am the Road,” He said. I am “also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me.” His Friends had no idea where He was going. They didn’t know, at least ‘til now, He was going anywhere. So “Roads,” weren’t on their agenda. Not at for the moment at least. The “Truth,” and “Life, ?” Well that seemed quite irrelevant too in light of the disturbing news. The Teacher they loved was leaving and they’d not be able to follow Him wherever He was going. Where are you going? How do we get there? Can you answer that? These were uncertain times. They were troubling times. It was hard to think straight. The obvious escaped them as it often does in crisis times. Jesus mention of getting “to the Father,” held their answer. Sadly they didn’t hear it. John wrote that, in those very moments, “Jesus knew the time had come to leave this world to go to the Father.” His return, “to the Father,” would be the most significant event in human history since the first two of our kind disobeyed and ran from God. A human, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, would enter the Throne of God and restore the Divine/Human partnership originally established in Creation. But He would go alone. No other human would be “able to” accompany Him.

Separated

It is then that the “Road,” matters. Someone would be “able to come” else there’d be no need of a road. Once Jesus, “gets to the Father,” whether a “Road’s” there or not, is immaterial. Isn’t it? He will have gotten there. No one else will be “able to come.” But He’s the one talking about it. And He is the “Road.” It does matter. “Getting to the Father,” had been a problem since the “disobedience.” These confused men He’d been teaching for 3 years knew the history of their people. They’d been well schooled. Jesus, Himself, had enriched their understanding of the goings on among men and their God. They knew that when the first humans disobeyed God they were evicted from Eden. Separated from God. They knew that God Most High, Himself, set “Cherubim” and a “flaming sword at the entrance of the Garden. They were banned from their Paradise and the “Tree of Life.” They knew that while God continued to pursue reconciliation with these recalcitrant creatures the distance between Him and them remained. They knew that people periodically sought Him as well. They knew that when God established their Nation, the Children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, special arrangements were made for the conduct of their newly decreed relationship. They were aware of the fact that human nature and the person of God were incompatible. Their peoples’ very early history recorded that in the Tent where Priests met with God there was a place called the “Holiest Place,” veiled off from human view, and forbidden to anyone but the High Priest. Even he would die if he hadn’t prepared carefully to enter the presence of the “Mighty God,” the “Great I AM!” These men also knew that such a “Holiest Place” occupied every temple built from the time of Solomon to their time. The temple in Jerusalem had such a place. The vast chasm between God and Humanity couldn’t be bridged.

Symbols Full of Answers

Unsettling as the night was the confusion of these Followers of Jesus had blinded them to some other very important things. They’d been eating Seder with their Master. The Passover Meal was a dramatic Event. Much of their history as the people of Yahweh made up its script. That night the meaning of it all was played out before them like never before. If they’d been thinking at all the sacrifice of the Lamb would have exploded with new meaning. They'd have remembered John the Baptist’s introduction of Jesus just beyond the Jordan River. “Behold!” the “Second Elijah” cried out. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World!” They’d have made the connection.

Since John does not provide much detail about the Seder that night we’ll need to turn to the Story told by another of the writers to see what they were missing. Luke describes the meal this way,

“When it was time, he sat down, all the apostles with him, and said, ‘You've no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It's the last one I'll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God.’ Taking the cup, he blessed it, then said, ‘Take this and pass it among you. As for me, I'll not drink wine again until the kingdom of God arrives’ Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory.’ He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you.’” (Luke 22: 14 – 20)

A meal so filled with symbolism caught the attention and gripped the attentive participant. The bread Jesus broke was the “afikoman,” “Hidden bread.” As one Jewish believer in Jesus, as Messiah, notes, “the afikoman matzah glowed with a special aura … because it symbolized the expected Messiah. When He said ‘take, eat; this is my body,’ He was in effect saying: ‘this broken and hidden matzah, which has for our people symbolized the Messiah, is fulfilled in me. I myself am the Afikoman – the Coming One – whom you expect.” The second cup of wine Jesus offered was the third of four cups served at Seder. This third cup is the “Cup of Redemption.” As another Jewish Follower of Christ writes, “This cup … symbolizes God’s promise of redemption from slavery. It was this cup… Yeshua raised and said, ‘This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you.’ He died to give us atonement from sin, and new life with God, just as the Passover Lamb was sacrificed to bring us redemption, … forgiving our sins because of Yeshua’s sacrifice.”

Clashing Kingdoms

These men had eaten Seder as many times as they were years old. But this time they’re reclining at the sacred Table with the “Coming One,” Himself. And they’re not really recognizing Him.

The Prophets of long ago prophesied of Messiah’s suffering. And they couldn’t make the connection. Oh yes! They’d confessed Jesus to be the “Christ.” But they weren’t “connecting the dots.”

“He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn't say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence … Justice miscarried, and he was led off — and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked … Even though he'd never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn't true.

Still, it's what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.

And God's plan will deeply prosper through him. Out of that terrible travail of soul, he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many ‘righteous ones,’ as he himself carries the burden of their sins.” (Isaiah 53:7- 12)

“I'll deal with the family of David and those who live in Jerusalem. I'll pour a spirit of grace and prayer over them. They'll then be able to recognize me as the One they so grievously wounded—that piercing spear-thrust! And they'll weep—oh, how they'll weep! Deep mourning as of a parent grieving the loss of the firstborn child.” (Zechariah 12: 10)

Still His troubled Followers cannot accept the fact that He must suffer this way and die. He was smashing their paradigms and they could not accept it. Their confusion comes from their earthbound attachment to a Messianic Emperor. A King among Earth Kings. Supreme; Sovereign; Supernaturally powerful. Themselves? His warriors and Satraps. Their hearts were broken as much about the loss of a longed for dynasty as they were about His departure. They needed no “Road” if it were to take them from their lifelong hope. Truth that contradicted their visions of power, and special privilege was not truth. How could life be anything but a living death if it meant a dark and desperate destiny like that of a Parent who knows his “firstborn child” will be lost.

He’d told them that the Messianic Empire was not His intent. “It's not going to be that way with you,” He said.

“Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage.” (Matthew 20: 26 – 28)

Can You Bear to Hear It?

But they weren’t ready to hear it. The thought tore at their hearts, leaving them in despair. A despair as much about themselves as their Master doomed to unimaginable “travail of soul.” They could not “drink of the cup which He would drink.” Not then. But perhaps sometime later … Perhaps … He said they would.” There may be Hope!

“ Oh Simon, Simon,

do you know that Satan has asked to have you all to sift like wheat?

—but I have prayed for you that you may not lose your faith.

Yes, when you have turned back to me, you must strengthen these brothers of yours.”