Sunday Go to Meeting Bun!

Sunday Bun 
by
L. A. Marzulli
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus

Last week at the Strategic Trends Conference, one of the speakers stated that if anyone of the speakers present were being interviewed by Larry King, and asked if Jesus was the only way to God, unlike one pastor who appeared on King’s program who equivocated when asked, all of us would give a strong affirmative to the King’s question, yes, Jesus is the only way.

This got me thinking.

People like King or other hosts I’ve watched over the years, like to lead with this question as it immediately puts the person being interviewed on the defensive.  If there’s a live audience you can hear them react to it too.  If the person answers yes, then he or she can come off sounding self-righteous, and narrow-minded.  Furthermore, the host can then ask what about the babies in Africa or China that never heard about Jesus.  

Here’s how I would respond if asked this question.

First off.  We need to place this question in its historical context as it is crucial to my answer.  We must put ourselves back in time and imagine we are witnessing the acts that Jesus is doing during the three plus years of His ministry.  We must realize that no one before or since has ever done the miracles that were attributed to Jesus.  While the skeptic will rail against this and insist that there were no miracles, I would ask him to at least consider the following.  If he or she was alive and witnessed lepers being healed, blind eyes being opened, storms ceasing at Jesus’ command, people being delivered of demons, Jesus walking on the water, Jesus changing water to wine, the deaf suddenly hearing, the lame walking for the first time and on and on and on it goes.  What are we to think of these incredible acts?  In other words Jesus is backing up His claim that He is God by demonstrating complete mastery of the natural and also in the supernatural, or spiritual realm.

A reasonable man or woman witnessing these events would have to at least agree that Jesus was doing superhuman feats.  Let’s take it a step further and I argued this point on a radio show years ago as the atheist host refused to answer my hypothetical scenario, which almost made me hang up!  I asked him this.  If his father had terminal cancer and Jesus showed up at his house and healed him would that be a good thing?  Because of this man’s world view, good and evil are not absolutes and thus, he was reluctant to answer.  Finally, he said yes, it would be a good thing.

Let’s bring this closer to home.  If it was our father or mother lying on their deathbed and Jesus came to the house and healed them, what would we think?  I believe we can agree that witnessing a miracle like this would radically change our world view.

It was in this context that Jesus proclaimed, He is the way and the truth and the life.  Remember, when he is stating this there is no Vatican or Billy Graham.  No priests or dark confessionals.  No nuns or stain glass windows.  No statuary or cathedrals, rosaries, candles, altars Christian TV, or any of the man-made trappings that in some ways have hindered people from seeing who Jesus really was/is!

In closing todays Bun. When we put Jesus comments in historical context of where He was and what He was doing, His declaring that He is the way the truth and the life, becomes a statement that is both pregnant with meaning and carries a weighted authority that is unequaled by any other historical figure.  He said He was God, because He actually was God and He demonstrated this everywhere He went, as he had mastery over our physical reality as well as the supernatural or spirit world as well.  This is why He is the only way to the father, and there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved.  Emanuel – God with us!

With that in mind.  Do you know Him?  Have you asked Him to come into your life?  He stands at the door and knocks.  He won’t force Himself on you.  You have to ask and He will come in for He is the way, the truth and the life….