Category: News

Our service from this past Sunday.

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Hespeler, May 17, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 1:3-14, Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35, 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11, John 17:1-11

The Christian church is one of the most successful organizations in the history of the world. From a handful of people – small enough that they could almost all be listed by name in our reading this morning from the Book of Acts – it grew over the next several centuries to become the dominant institution of the Western world and ultimately to dominate the globe.

And sure, in our own day, some of that dominance has fallen off. Apart from some significant exceptions, the church in North America is not experiencing overall growth these days. But it has been quite a run.

Going Back to Where it Started

And if it has fallen off a bit, maybe it is time to go back to where it all started. In our reading this morning, the author of the Book of Acts is telling us that story. He is describing the events that were foundational for the church, that set it up to become all that it was meant to be.

Next week, on Pentecost, we will celebrate the birthday of the church and how, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it came into being. But today, let’s look at the foundational advice that Jesus and others gave to the church to set them up so that they could hit the ground running.

I see three pieces of advice in this passage – advice that is just as relevant today as when this book was written. I call them the three W’s. And I hope that you will leave with all three of them on your hearts as you meditate on what God is calling our church to do today.

Finding Success

Our world has some very clear ideas about success and how it is supposed to be achieved. Endless books have been written about how to were up your organization for it. And these books focus on things like structure and strategy. It often comes down to having a clear mission and making sure that everything in your organization is built around reaching those goals.

So, I guess that is where we should start. Surely the first thing that Jesus gave to the church had to be an excellent strategy and a clear mission statement.

But is that what we see in our reading this morning? Not exactly. After spending 40 days with his followers and giving them all the proof that they needed that he was alive and had conquered death for them, he finally gathered them together to tell them what the next step in the plan was.

Wait

So, this is it, right, the big strategy session. We’re going to get the inside scoop on how the church is supposed to set itself up to gain power and influence people. That is how you succeed in this life, isn’t it?

So, what does Jesus do? “He ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promise of the Father.”

Let me ask you, does that seem like the kind of winning strategy that brings you success in our world? Where are the instructions to set up committees and programs? Where are the organizing principles and the grand mission statements and visioning exercises? Most of all, where is the budget? We all know that you can’t get anything done without a budget!

Contrary to Worldly Wisdom

This goes against everything we are taught about how organizations thrive. We want to get ready, to plan and prepare. We assume that the only way to get ahead in this world is to get busy. What kind of plan starts with wait?

But that is exactly what Jesus says to do. And that, for the most part, is what the first Christians do. It says that they “were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.” Their main activity was wait.

What are we to take away from this as we seek to build a strong church? Should we just disband all of our committees, scrap our mission statements and hold endless prayer meetings?

Well, not exactly. I do believe that there is a place for all these things. Having the right kind of structures in place does help you to be ready when whatever you are waiting for actually shows up.

Maintaining Structures

But it is also true that the church has a long history of pouring so much energy and time into setting up and maintaining our structures that we can miss hearing what God is telling us to do.

Every church has tendencies to do this in their own way. I have often seen how Presbyterians do it. Every year, for example, the Presbyterian Church gathers at a General Assembly with representatives coming from across the country.

The purpose of these assemblies, at its core, is to listen to what God is saying to the church. In the Reformed Church, we believe that when the church gathers in this way and when we pray, the Holy Spirit speaks to the church. And I know that that does happen; I have been there sometimes when the Spirit speaks to the church, and it is quite moving.

But when we do meet like that, there is also always a lot of business to do. There are budgets to be approved, committees to form and policies to put in place. And it is always a temptation to let all of that business absorb our attention. We become totally focused on it. And then, when we leave, we congratulate ourselves on having a good assembly if we have dealt with all the business efficiently.

And that is what we do at all levels in the church. We pour our attention and effort into organization, policies and meetings and congratulate ourselves for setting ourselves up for success. This first instruction of Jesus to wait on God’s Spirit gives us an important corrective to that tendency.

Trust in our Structures

Even more troubling, we tend to put our trust in those organizational efforts. Having proper policies and committee structures makes us feel confident that we are building a secure future. But Jesus doesn’t want us to trust in our efforts, does he? He wants us to trust in God, and so Jesus teaches us to wait.

So, the first W is wait. Now let’s turn to the next piece of advice that Jesus gives us. Surely the next thing that we need for success is a good marketing strategy. If we want our churches to grow as the early church grew from its humble beginnings, we obviously need to have some kind of plan to get the word out.

Marketing the Message

And of course, our modern world stands ready with all kinds of expertise in that area. So much of the world around us is geared towards getting out exactly those kinds of messages. We are all surrounded every single day with so much advertising and marketing that we often don’t even realize that it is being fed to us.

And we certainly see churches jumping wholeheartedly into this effort, engaging in multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns such as, for example, the “He Gets Us” campaign that placed $20 million ads in four of the most recent Super Bowls.

And even churches that have nowhere near that kind of money to throw around (like Canadian Presbyterian churches) still feel like they need to invest whatever effort and money they can into things like social media campaigns and even hire consultants to get their message out.

Jesus’ Communication Plan

So, what is the advice that Jesus gives us for this essential part of the plan? Well, here is what he says to the disciples: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This brings us to the second W for a successful church: witness. Witnessing is a communication strategy, but it is not one that we usually associate with big marketing campaigns, is it? It is more associated with trials and law courts.

Based on Our Experiences

But here is the key thing about witnessing that I think that Jesus is pointing to. Witnesses can only speak about what they have experienced themselves. They have to speak authentically because that is the only thing that can give their message meaning.

That is, in many ways, the very opposite of a slick marketing campaign, which depends on form and style, not on people just being themselves.

What does that mean for the church as it spreads its message today? It doesn’t mean that we can have no communication strategies or that we cannot think and plan about how we want to use things like social media.

Honesty and Authenticity

But it is an important reminder that any message we put out to the world has to be honest and authentic. The church can’t just take polls and give people the message that they want to hear. We need to speak from the heart about what we have experienced of Jesus. That is what Jesus calls the church to do, and it remains the foundation of our success to this day.

So, first we are to wait. Secondly, we are to witness. What is the third W? That is not something that Jesus himself says, but something that is said just after he leaves.

Watching Heaven

Jesus ascends into heaven. The immediate presence of Jesus is being transformed into a more spiritual presence. But then something remarkable happens. “While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.”

What were the disciples doing at that moment? They were watching – gazing up toward heaven. And that is an attitude that the Christian church has often adopted throughout the centuries.

We fix all of our attention and energy on heaven and particularly on getting there someday when we die. For many people, that has become the entire point of the Christian faith – that it is only about getting a ticket to heaven.

Why Watch?

Now, the promise of an afterlife is real; I do not mean to suggest in any way that it isn’t. But I would say that when it becomes the sole focus of our faith, we have a problem. And so it is that two angels come to the disciples as they stand there and say, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

This is an important warning about the first W. The first W was a command to wait – to wait on God and on the action of the Holy Spirit. But this makes it quite clear that our waiting should not be focused on another world or on a life after death. We are to wait on God for this world – wait on God who will show us where to go and how to bear witness to our experience of Jesus in this world.

In God’s Hands

What comes after this life, we can simply trust that that is in God’s hands. “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority,” Jesus says to the disciples. And the two angels agree when they say, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

The message is clear. God will take care of all of that and you can confidently leave that in God’s loving hands. But you are here now and you all have some things to do.

And what have you got to do? If you leave today without knowing that, then I will have failed in my job today.

Wait, Witness

You are called to wait on God. You are to be ready to respond to the opportunities to show God’s love in this world that God places before you. You are to wait, expecting that God’s Spirit will lead.

And you are called to witness. You are to be ready to share from your own heart what you have experienced of your Lord Jesus whenever the opportunity arises. And you are to do that in Jerusalem (that is, where you are). You are to do it in Judea and Samaria (that is, where you have some influence). And you are to do it to the ends of the earth (that is, wherever God might send you).

Why Are You Watching?

And every so often, you need to check yourself and ask why you are wasting your time watching heaven. Your heavenly destiny is in the hands of your heavenly Father, and you can trust God for it.

So, will you remember them? Will you ponder them this week? Wait, witness and why are you watching heaven?

This is one of our bible readings this Sunday.

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Hespeler, May 10, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Christian Family Sunday
Acts 17:22-31, Psalm 66:8-20, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21

One argument that you might hear against believing in God goes like this. The atheist reminds the believer that, in the history of the world, people have believed in many different gods. People have worshipped gods like Zeus and Jupiter. They have pledged their faith to Athena, Ra, Odin and Thor, and the list goes on and on.

“But you,” the atheist says to the believer, “You reject all of those gods. You think that all of those people were wrong to believe in them. Well, I just wanted to let you know that I agree with you. I don’t believe in any of those gods either. In fact, we are almost the same. It is just that I believe in one less god than you.”

I Don’t Get It

I don’t know about you, but I have come across that argument a few times, and I have to admit that it doesn’t quite make sense to me. I get the implication. The idea is that the rejection of any idea of God is merely the logical extension of what everyone does when they choose not to believe in Zeus or Odin.

But there are some big assumptions behind all of that that I do not accept. And without those assumptions, the argument falls flat.

Paul in Athens

But rather than talk to you about my assumptions, let me dig into what the Apostle Paul says in our reading this morning from the Book of Acts instead, because I think that we are on much the same wavelength when it comes to these matters.

In this passage, Paul is in the city of Athens, which is the heart of Ancient Greek religion, philosophy and culture. Since the Athenians love to talk and debate about everything, when Paul shows up in the city and starts preaching strange new ideas about a guy named Jesus and about the resurrection, he causes a bit of a stir.

At the Areopagus

And so, he is invited to address a meeting of the Areopagus. The Areopagus was named after a rugged hill in the centre of the city, the hill of the god Ares. Likely originally a place devoted to the war god where Athenians mustered for battle, centuries of peace had transformed the gatherings associated with that hill into more of a debating society where they gathered to talk about the latest and trendiest ideas.

This is a remarkable opportunity. Paul is, both from his Jewish heritage and from his new Christian faith, a monotheist. He believes that there is only one God who is the Creator of heaven and earth and the Father of his Lord Jesus Christ.

A Perfect Opportunity to Criticize

And here he is in the very centre of Greek polytheism – in the city of the goddess Athena and surrounded by ancient temples dedicated to the great gods of the Olympian pantheon. These people believe in so many gods that Paul doesn’t believe in.

So, Paul has a perfect opportunity to attack them for their beliefs. He could do a whole routine. “Are you telling me that you actually believe in a god who turned himself into a <snigger> golden shower to seduce a princess?” “And is the patron goddess of your city so petty that she once turned a woman into a spider because she was a better weaver?”

Yes, Paul could have attacked all of the Greek gods and offered reasons why they were ridiculous. Every religion, including our own, has certain elements that can be attacked in this manner.

Paul Praises

But Paul does not do this. In fact, he begins by praising them for their belief. “Athenians,” he says, “I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way.” And he seems to mean this sincerely. In fact, he points to one particular thing about their spirituality that particularly impresses him. “For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’”

These sorts of altars did actually exist in the ancient world, by the way. None have actually been dug up in Athens, but they have been found in many other ancient cities, including one in the very centre of Ancient Rome.

Paul doesn’t bring this altar up to make fun of them, though. He is not laughing at them because they have so many gods that they lose track of them or anything like that. He celebrates the fact that they are stretching towards divinity that they do not understand. “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

Unknowingly Worshipping God

That is remarkable when you think about it. Here is Paul, speaking to these polytheists and suggesting that they have been unknowingly worshipping the same God that he, a monotheist, worships. How can this be?

I understand it like this. If God exists – if there is a supernatural being who created all things and is somehow involved in keeping the universe running – that God, almost by definition, is beyond all human understanding.

Human Limitations

We can’t describe or define God. Our human language does not have the words. Nor can we imagine or conceptualize such a God because our human minds are too limited.

That means that whatever we can say or think about God is going to be imperfect and incomplete. And yet, as human beings, we are drawn to God. It seems to be built into our very humanity.

Imperfect Concepts

And so it is that almost every civilization has come up with some concept of the divine. They tell stories and write poetry about beings who are beyond their understanding.

Are all of these ideas that they have about their gods completely true and correct? Did the gods of the Greeks literally live on Mount Olympus? Did the Norse gods ride eight-legged horses over a bridge made out of a rainbow? Of course not. At best these are metaphors and myths that may point to some truths about a universal deity. They represent human attempts at reaching towards a reality that human minds cannot comprehend.

How They Stretch Towards God

And that is what Paul celebrates in the Athenians. They are stretching towards a God who is a lot like the God that he proclaims. In fact, he congratulates them on getting a number of things right about God.

He gives them a quote from one of their own religious poets. He cites the poet Epimenides, who lived in Crete in the sixth century BC. Epimenides wrote, “In him we live and move and have our being.” And then he quotes the Stoic philosopher, Aratas, who wrote two centuries later, “For we, too, are his offspring.”

These two men lived centuries before the time of Christ, so think about what Paul is saying here. He is saying that, for a very long time, the Greeks have carried with them accurate understandings about the same God that he worships.

About Zeus

What’s more, both of these philosophers wrote these words about the Greek God Zeus. So, Paul is actually saying to the Greeks that, by believing in Zeus, they were striving towards belief in the true God. He is effectively saying that they were somewhat right to believe in Zeus for all those centuries.

Of course, he is also saying that their belief was imperfect and incomplete and that he has some better information for them, but he does not say that they were wrong.

Paul Has Better Information

Paul believes that he has better information because of what he has experienced in Christ Jesus. And that is indeed what Christians have claimed ever since – that God has revealed Godself to humanity in a unique way in Jesus Christ.

But does that mean that Paul is saying that he has the full and absolute truth about God, that he has completely comprehended the nature of God? He would not claim that. He, too, is merely reaching towards a God who remains unknowable to mere humans. It is just that he has been assisted in that quest by his faith in Jesus Christ.

We All Get It Wrong

So that is I why I do not really buy the argument of the Atheists who say that they just believe in one less god than I do. Yes, I do not believe in the reality of gods like Zeus and Thor. But I do recognize that the people who did believe in them were reaching towards the same truth that I am reaching towards.

Even more important, I also recognize that my concept of God is also flawed and incomplete. Yes, the Creator of heaven and earth has been uniquely revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, but I have barely scratched the surface of who Jesus really is. And the God that I worship is ultimately unknowable in human terms anyway. That is one of the things that makes God worth worshipping.

Masculine Ways of Imagining God

And all of this speaks very meaningfully to me on this day known as Mother’s Day. I am always made aware of how inadequate our language and understanding of God are on the second Monday in May.

So many of the ways we talk about God, for example, are masculine. We particularly love to call God, “Father.” And not without reason, of course, because that seems to have been Jesus’ favourite way to refer to God.

And calling God a heavenly Father is indeed a beautiful way to speak. It celebrates God’s love and protection for God’s people. It is a helpful way to talk about God, at least for those who have had positive experiences with their own human fathers. But does it mean that God is male in the way that we human beings experience maleness? Of course not.

Father is a metaphor for God – a way of reaching towards the reality of God that is imperfect and limited by our humanity. But other ways of speaking about God can also reach towards that same reality.

Feminine Ways of Imagining God

On this Mother’s Day, I absolutely affirm that it can be very good to talk about God as Mother too. The Bible itself does use mother language to speak about God.  “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you,” God says in the Book of Isaiah. (Isaiah 66:13) And also, “Can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these might forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15)

God is said to be like a mother bear in the Book of Hosea (Hosea 13:8), and like a mother eagle in Deuteronomy. (Deuteronomy 32:11-12) So even the Bible, written in an extremely patriarchal culture though it was, was able to reach towards God by thinking of God using feminine imagery.

God Doesn’t Fit Human Categories

Why can the Bible talk like that? Because God, being unknowable, does not fit into human categories such as male and female or human roles such as mother and father.

Calling God Mother does not mean God is female any more than calling God Father makes God male. But it is a beautiful reminder that our experiences of mothers and the love that they offer can teach us so much about the true nature of God, even if, as it says in Isaiah, God’s love exceeds even the love of a human mother.

The failure of believers to completely define or even agree about the God that they worship is not a problem for believers. It is certainly not a reason to abandon belief in divinity altogether. Far from despising the ancients or those who follow other religions because they do not imagine the divine in the way that I do, I like Paul, am willing to acknowledge that they are stretching towards the same thing that I am. Like Paul, I am willing to learn from their insights and wisdom.

And if I do recognize that they were imperfect in what they found and in the worship that they offered, I also humbly accept my own failure to properly conceive of God and to offer God all the worship that God deserves.

The ultimate unknowableness of God is not a bug; it is a feature. It encourages us continually in our quest to find God.

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Hespeler, May 3, 2026 © Scott McAndless – Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 6:8-15, 7:55-60, Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16, 1 Peter 2:2-10, John 14:1-14

According to the Gospel of John, in the middle of the Last Supper, Jesus turned to the disciples and he said, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

And what has the church responded to that ever since? “Oh yes,” the church has declared, “we know where you are going, Jesus. You are going to heaven. You are going to a place of bliss.

“And because we know the way to that place where you are going, we will control who gets to follow it. We will tell everyone what the way is and, unless they all listen to us and do exactly what we say, they will never get there.”

Sacraments

The church hasn’t always agreed among its various branches on what that way is and exactly how you have to follow it. Some churches will insist that the way to where Jesus went involves you participating in all of the rituals and sacraments of the church, and if you fail to do them all or to do them properly, or if you haven’t participated recently when you die, well, then you can’t follow in the way.

Knowledge

Other churches have insisted that the way actually involves knowledge. You have to know certain secrets that have been passed down to you through the church, and that is what allows you to follow in the way.

Various churches have pointed to different pieces of knowledge. Some have said that you have to know certain things about yourself, such as that you have a spark of the divine within you. Others say you have to learn things about the hidden structure of the universe. Others keep the mysteries that they say you have to understand so well hidden that no one outside of those church has ever been able to discover them.

But whatever specific pieces of knowledge they will point to, they know that knowledge itself is the way and that they are the ones who have control over who can access it.

Faith

And then came the Protestant Reformation. The Protestants finally figured out what the way was to get to the place where Jesus was going. And they knew that the way was through faith. It was all a matter of what you believed.

And so the churches began to map out the way for true followers of Jesus by writing out all of the creeds and the confessions of faith that you had to believe. And if you didn’t believe the things that the church told you to believe – if you were not a proper Five Point Calvinist or a Pre-Tribulation Post-Millennialist or whatever else your church told you to be – then you could not follow in the way.

Relationship

But that was not the only way that the church came up with. Evangelistic churches finally came along to explain what the “true” way was. They said it was actually about forming a relationship with Jesus. You had to do that by responding to the message of the Gospel in the way that they told you – often by praying a particular prayer.

So, yes, down through the years, the church has certainly decided that it knew exactly what Jesus was talking about when he said, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

Not Completely Wrong

I don’t mean to suggest that the church has been utterly wrong in the ways that it has told people to follow in the way of Jesus. Obviously, following in the way of Jesus has a great deal to do with questions of Christian practice, knowledge, faith and personal devotion.

But I can’t help but think that we may have made a mistake in so confidently teaching people that we know exactly how they ought to follow Jesus to where he was going. And a big part of that is that we decided that we needed to be in control of who gets to follow in the way of Jesus.

Thomas’ Wise Answer

Thomas was one of the disciples present when Jesus said that. And I note that that was not his reaction. He did not jump up and say, “Oh yes, I know exactly what to tell people to do.” He hesitated to take that kind of control over people.

In fact, he spoke up in true humility to say, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” And I cannot help but think that perhaps the church would do well to learn something from Thomas and his response. Thomas seems to have been a pretty smart guy.

What Jesus was Talking About

When Jesus spoke about the way to the place where he was going, it turns out that he wasn’t talking primarily about practices, or knowledge, or even faith or a personal relationship. He was talking about something much more essential than that.

And so Jesus explained, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And I realize that ever since this Gospel was written, people have assumed that they understood what Jesus meant by that.

They have assumed, in fact, that Jesus meant whatever their particular church has decided that it means to follow in the way of Jesus. But I think it is time for us to step back from all of those assumptions about what Jesus meant and look at what he said. I suspect that the way of Jesus may be somewhat simpler than we have been led to believe.

I Am the Way

Jesus said, “I am the way.” And that means that we need to set aside all of our assumptions about what we have to do to follow in that way. It is not about what we do for Jesus or how we open that way. It is about what Jesus has done for us and about the way that Jesus has opened.

He said, “I am the way.” That means that it is actually not about the destination. Following in the way of Jesus is not about getting you to some heavenly bliss someday. Yes, that may be the final stop on the subway track, but such a destination is not the primary focus.

If Jesus is himself the way, then it is much more about travelling moment by moment and day by day in fellowship with Christ. It is about living your best life with Jesus now and not waiting for something beyond this world.

An Encounter

In fact, if you want to talk about the destination of this way at all, you ought not to speak of it in terms of a place but in terms of an encounter. The end of the way is the encounter with God. That is what Jesus has to mean when he says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

But here is the thing about that. That encounter with the Father does not lie only at the end of the way. Jesus makes it clear that you don’t have to wait until the end of the journey to meet the Father because, as he repeats several times, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

So, God is not just someone waiting for us at the end of this way. God is the one we encounter on the way. We encounter God in the one who is the way for us.

I Am the Truth

Jesus also says, “I am the truth. That means that following in the way is not dependent on the knowledge you accumulate. Yes, you can study the scriptures in all the original languages. You can absorb vast books of theology. And if those things deepen your appreciation of the way that you are on, that is all wonderful. But you don’t hold on to the truth, no matter how much you know. It is the truth that holds on to you.

Our Illusion of Control

We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that, if we can come up with a description or definition of something, we control it. I often hear people say that, because they have a concept of God, they know what God can and cannot do. “If God inspires a piece of Scripture,” someone might say, “that Scripture has to be literally true because God can’t lie.”

Do you really think that, because you have a definition of God, you can tell God what kinds of literature God can inspire? It doesn’t work like that. Your concept of God is just that – your concept. It is always going to be imperfect and incomplete because it is a human concept.

That is what Jesus means when he says “I am the truth.” The truth about God, about the world or your path along the way is not limited by your human understanding. It is all wrapped up in the person of Jesus and it is always bigger than anything your human mind can grasp.

I Am the Life

And Jesus also says, “I am the life.” That is good news because it means that your life is not bound by the limitations of your human body or the human experience of time. Your life is as boundless as the person of Christ.

So, Jesus is saying all of that and more in this incredible statement. But we also need to take note of what he is not saying. He is not offering Thomas or any of the other disciples control over who gets to follow in this way.

The One True Church

As I have already noted, Christians down through the centuries have tried to be the boss of who gets to follow in the way of Christ.

There is one old cartoon that illustrates this perfectly. It features a Sunday School teacher standing at front of his class. On the blackboard is a diagram illustrating the history of the church.

There is one original branch, which then divides again and again to represent the various divisions and disagreements of the church over the centuries, until, at the right end of the board, there are so many different churches that the options fill the entire height of the graphic.

The teacher points to one tiny branch on the edge of the board labelled “our church.” He announces to the class, “Fortunately, with the founding of our church, the true and correct way to follow Jesus was finally found. Unfortunately, everyone else has been consigned to hell.”

We Don’t Set the Limits

That is how we have thought about it – as if there is one true way and we have to be the ones to figure out what that way is. But Jesus says, “I am the way.” You cannot limit any person, much less a divine person, with your doctrines, teachings and confessions of faith. As much as we try to limit what it means for someone to follow in that way, if the way is Jesus himself, all our human limitations will only end up making us look foolish.

In fact, whenever we judge anyone and say that they cannot be saved because of our understanding of the way of Christ, we fail to appreciate what Jesus is saying here. Yes, Jesus does say, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” and that might seem to us to exclude all kinds of people.

Jesus Gets to Decide

But again, we aren’t the ones who get to define what it means to come through Jesus. Jesus is the way; only he gets to define that. The Bible, and especially the Apostle Paul, teaches that the only way to come to God is through faith in Christ. But again, we don’t get to define the full meaning of faith, not even with our doctrines and creeds. Ultimately, it is Jesus who gets to decide who is placing their trust in him.

And, from everything that I have learned about Jesus in my studies of the gospels, I believe that he would define that in very expansive and grace-filled ways. I don’t think that Jesus is the sort to exclude someone just because they don’t sign off on some doctrine or even because they don’t claim the name of Christian.

We Are Not the Way

But, of course, that is just my thinking and you may understand it differently. That is okay. My point is that all of our understandings of such things are limited and may be flawed. And that matters less than you might think because we are not the way; Jesus is.

In the midst of the Last Supper, John tells us that Jesus said, “And you know the way to the place where I am going.” And the more I think about that saying, the more I find myself sympathizing with Thomas and replying, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

But Thomas wasn’t expressing frustration or anger when he said that. I think he was expressing exactly the kind of humility that Jesus was looking for in those who would join him in the way.

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