John 14:1-14
April 20, 2008
Devotion given at the Yosemite Trip of First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
For most of us, we have been coming to Yosemite on the first weekend after taxes are due as long as we can remember. We know that there are two ways of coming to Yosemite Valley—sometimes one is open while the other one is impassable. We choose one way because it’s more scenic or the other way because it’s shorter and we gotten a late start. Some take the southern way because it’s closer to where they live while others take the northern way for the same reason. However we all got here, we arrived by using our many years of memory or an AAA map or turning on our GPS.
The Christian writer Annie Dillard shares a childhood memory:
“When I was six or seven year old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been seized by it since. For some reason I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: ‘Surprise ahead or Money this way.’ I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passerby who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe.”
It seems that God acts in a similar way. From the time of creation, God has been drawing arrows for us directing us toward the unmerited gift of God’s grace.
The John 14 lesson we read today record two questions from two disciples. They want a good look at God. Thomas said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus answers them that he is the arrow pointing to God, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus is not only the arrow, he is the grace to which the arrow points. He and God are one.
As a Christian, I certainly want to claim Jesus as my way to God. My faith claim is that Jesus is the divine presence, offering us salvation, and a way of life. But can there be other manifestations of God? I am sure all Christians would claim that God is able to reveal God’s self in any way God would choose. To suggest otherwise would limit God. Why do you think we make our annual trip to Yosemite whether it’s sunny or snowing, warm or freezing cold? We can see God in this place.
To be Christian is to claim Christ as the center of our lives. Everything else depends upon our relationship with Christ. A potter knows the importance of centering. If the clay a potter tries to mold is not centered properly, it will flatten and be unusable. Centered clay allows for shaping and molding. To be centered in Christ is to be shaped by him.
Our life is ultimately centered in God’s grace. Jesus points us toward God. He offers “the way” toward God’s grace.
At the end of this passage, Jesus offers a bold statement about who we are as his disciples, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” Then he said, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
Coming to Yosemite gives us a weekend to get away from the daily-ness of life so that afterward we would return to that day-to-day life to do God’s work. No one stays at Yosemite forever—we all need to take those same roads back down from this mountaintop splendor.
Inasmuch as the arrow points to Jesus Christ, Christ then points us to do God’s work in the world. A traveler from Italy came to a French town to see a great cathedral that was being built. He encountered a number of workers. One was covered with dust and he asked what he did. The man replied that he was a stonemason (perhaps working with granite that surrounds us right now). He had spent his days carving rocks.
A second man responded that he was a glassblower, and spent his days making colored glass. Still another replied that he was a blacksmith who hammered iron for a living. Finally, the traveler came upon an older woman with broom in hand. She was sweeping up the stone chips, bits of glass, and the iron filings. He asked what she was doing and she responded, “Me? I’m building a cathedral for the Glory of Almighty God.”
Indeed this is a “Cathedral of Pines” or Yosemite is a wonderful natural cathedral of stone and trees. We see God in this place. But Jesus is pointing us to do even greater works in the world and he will help us to do it. When we come off this beautiful place, we will also have a good look at God when we are doing his work in the world.
Let us pray.