(Jn 14: 6)
“I am”, an expression dear to the evangelist John when referring to Jesus in his Gospel, is applied here to three substantives, the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus, as the beloved Son who loves the Father and His brothers and sisters, is for us the Way of salvation, because He reveals to us the Truth of God and of man; and He is for us the Life because He gives us His love, which is the very life of God. For in Him the life of all that exists resides (Jn 1: 4), and He possesses and communicates Life like the Father does (Jn 5: 26).
The way is not a road, but a person to be followed; the truth is not a concept, but a man to be encountered; the life is not a biological fact, but love to be experienced.
The way is always about the Father’s house, from which or towards which the believer walks. The way of God is traditionally the law. Now, the doctrine of Jesus (Acts 9: 2; 24: 22), is the new law, which brings us home.
The ‘truth of God’ is the flesh of Jesus, the Son who makes us see the Father. The ‘life of God’ is the same love between the Father and the Son which Jesus witnessed by His life and has given to us through His death. Other paths lead astray, other truths are fallacious, and other proposals for life are deadly.
Jesus, as the Way, leads us back to our identity, where we come from; as the Truth, He makes us see our reality as children and that of God as Father and as Life, He is the love of God himself, beginning and end of everything.
Jesus is the way because He is the truth of love, which gives life. Thomas will find this way by entering into His wounds; in them, he will touch the truth of an extreme love that knows how to give life. It is not so much a way to go, like the law; it is rather a way that leads us because it gives us the grace and truth of the Son (Jn 1: 17).
No one comes to the Father except through me. One would expect to hear: No one ‘goes’ to the Father… but Jesus says ‘comes,’ because He is in the Father and the Father is in Him (Jn 14: 10). His very going away to prepare a place for us is a coming to us (Jn 14: 3); the love that He reveals to us on the Cross draws us and unites us to Him, making us capable of loving as He loves us.
Jesus, the Son, is the only way to return to the Father; through Him we know and love God, we know and love our brothers and sisters. This does not mean that whoever does not know Him is lost. The Son, the eternal Word of the Father, has always been at work, in infinite ways, to enlighten every person and make them know the truth of love (Jn 1: 9, 14). In fact, “whoever loves is begotten by God and knows God” (1 Jn 4: 7b), “for God is love” (1 Jn 4: 8b). (Fr. Silvano Fausti)
