An Exegesis of John 14:1-12—EA25
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 14, 2017
For Faith Sharing—Gospel: John 14:1-12
Theme: Jesus is our cornerstone.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have
faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a
place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also
may be. Where I am going you know the way.” Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not
know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, I am the way
and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know
me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen
him.” Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus
said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you
not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do
not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am
in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do
greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.”
GOSPEL CONTEXT: At this point in the story, it's Thursday evening, the night before Jesus'
crucifixion. In John's account, Jesus not only knows that he will soon leave this world but also
he tries to prepare his disciples for the events about to transpire. In fact, after the last supper
he shares with his friends, Jesus spends the next four chapters of John's Gospel talking about
his imminent departure, and these verses come right at the beginning of that long and
dramatic scene. A few moments earlier Jesus told them that one of them would soon betray
him, and now he's just told Peter that he will deny him three times. It's in this context that
Jesus says, as we just heard, "Do not let your hearts be troubled." [David Lose,
http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1572]
Q1. Question: "What?" The disciples must have asked. "Do not let our hearts be troubled?
Are you kidding us? You've just told us you're going to die." Would we not feel the same
way as the disciples?
Q2. Question: Thomas -- brave, realistic Thomas -- asks another of those questions, "But,
Jesus, actually, we don't even know where you're going, how then can we know the way?
Q3. Question: What is so audacious and bold about Phillip’s question?
Q4. Question: How have we been tempted to ask Jesus questions just as bold and audacious
as Phillip’s?
Q5. Question: Yet, how does Jesus respond to Phillip (and to us)?
Q6. Question: This dialogue takes place on the eve of Jesus’ crucifixion. What does his
crucifixion and death mean for us?
Q7. Question: What does this Gospel teach us about asking God tough questions?
Q8. Question: What are some of the ways that Jesus showed us the Way in his life?
Q9. Question: What did Jesus mean by saying, “I am the Truth”?
Q10. Question: What did Jesus mean by saying, “I am the Life’?
Q11. Question: What is the implication of God’s presence not only in Jesus, but in all of
creation?
An Exegesis of John 14:1-12—EA25
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 14, 2017
Q1. No doubt most of us can intuitively understand what they're going through, because
each of us has had those moments, too, when our hearts were not only deeply troubled, but
downright disturbed, even anguished. Yet Jesus asks his disciples not just to believe in
him but to trust him, to commit their futures to him. Then, before you know it, he moves
on, talking about going away, preparing places, and coming back. As if to add insult to
injury, he implies that they should know what he is talking about; he actually says that they
know the way to follow!!! [David Lose at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1572]
Q2. And when Jesus says he is the way, and asks again that they trust him, Philip can stand it
no longer and asks the one question no faithful Jew should ever ask. Actually, it's a
statement, a request, a plea, maybe even a demand, but underneath it all is a question:
"Show us the Father," Philip says, "and we will be satisfied." Or, to put it more directly,
"What does God look like?" [ibid, David Lose]
Q3. John doesn't record this, but I suspect there's a bit of a collective gasp on the part of the
other disciples when Philip asks this hard question. In ancient Israel, you see, it was simply
understood that no one can see God and live. Moses, the model of heroic faith in the Old
Testament, once made a similar request, and God put him face-forward in the cleft of a
mountain and passed by and all Moses could see was the glory of the Lord shimmering
around him. He was finally allowed to turn around and look only after God has passed by, so
that Moses ultimately saw only the trail of the Lord's glory or, more literally in the Hebrew,
Moses could only see God's backside. God is too much, you see, for us to bear -- too
holy, too powerful, too infinite, too full of potential and life and the future for any mere
mortal to behold and live. And yet Philip asks to see God anyway. "If you want us to trust
you, Jesus, just show us the Father." That is, "What does God look like?" [ibid, David Lose]
Q4. I suspect we can understand where it came from. Because each of has been there, too:
at our wits end, desperate for some hope that things will get better, for some reason to
believe that this tragedy is not all there is. Maybe it was when the doctor told you that the
cancer had returned. Or when a loved one died unexpectedly; Or when the stewardship
appeal went sour; Or when you discovered your beloved has left; Or after one more
miscarriage, or when the Twin Towers fell, or the flood waters rose, or...or.... Each of us, you
see, has also had moments where we wanted some reassurance, some glimmer of hope, that
all that we had heard and learned about God is not just some false story but true. "Just show
us the Father," we plea, "and we will be satisfied." [ibid, David Lose]
Q5. Jesus responds, not in frustration but in love, both to Philip and to us, "Have I been
with you all this time and yet still you don't know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the
Father!" Which takes us back to the very beginning of John's gospel actually, when John,
after singing his hymn about the Word that was from the beginning, the Word that is with
God and is God, the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us that we might have life....
After all this, John closes his hymn to the Word by saying, "No one has seen God. But the
only begotten Son, who rests in the very bosom of the Father, he has made him known."
And there it is -- the two truths of the life of faith. First, no one has seen God. And that's
hard, sometimes crushingly hard, to believe, to trust, to keep faith in and with a God no one
can see. And yet the second truth: Jesus, the Son, the Word made flesh, if you've seen
An Exegesis of John 14:1-12—EA25
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 14, 2017
him you have seen God and so know what God looks like and, more importantly, what
God is up to and who God is for. [ibid, David Lose]
Q6. Keep in mind that in the story John tells we are on the eve of the crucifixion. Jesus is
about to be betrayed, abandoned, handed over, tried, insulted, beaten, and then
crucified, nailed to a cross and hung there to die. Why? To appease the righteous anger
of a just God? To set for us some kind of example of what real faith looks like? To take the
just punishment we deserve? No, No, and No. Jesus goes to the cross for one reason and
one reason only: to show us God, to show us God's grace and mercy, to show just how
much God loves us and how far God will go to communicate that love to us that we
might believe and, believing, have life in his name. [ibid, David Lose]
Q7. This Gospel teaches us to tell our people to bring their questions, even their hardest, to
the God Jesus makes known. For this God can handle them; indeed, this God wants them.
And then go on to tell them that when they are next their wits end, when their hearts are
troubled and blood pressure is racing with anxiety -- remind them to look to Jesus, the
one who preached God's mercy and taught God's love, the one who healed the sick,
opened the eyes of the blind, made the lame to walk, and then conquered death so that
even the grave can no longer claim us. Because what you see in Jesus..., this is what God
looks like, this is who and what God is: love, perfect love, for you, for them, for all of us
and the whole world. [ibid, David Lose]
Q8. Here is a partial list. You may add your own
1. Jesus suffered, died and rose from the dead to save all men.
2. Jesus spent his whole life giving to others.
3. Jesus gave us the model for forgiving others.
4. Jesus modeled self-denial in helping the poor.
5. Jesus cured those suffering from disease and illness.
6. Jesus taught us how to pray always.
7. Jesus taught us that God was a loving and merciful Father, not mean or vengeful.
8. Jesus showed us the way to holiness and goodness.
9. Jesus never struck back at those who hurt him.
10. Jesus bore witness to God’s great love for humankind.
11. Jesus taught us how to be humble.
12. Jesus taught us self-control.
13. Jesus taught us how to love our brothers and sisters.
14. Jesus taught us how to serve those in need.
15. Jesus taught us how to be grateful to God for his gifts.
16. Jesus taught us how to be obedient and faithful.
17. And very importantly, Jesus gave us our mission in life: to make disciples.
The Jews talked much about the way in which men must walk and the ways of God. “You
shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you” (Deut 5:32). “This
is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21). “Teach me thy way, O Lord” (Psalm 27:11). When
Jesus said, “I am the Way,” he was doing more than giving us directions to God. He was
making sure that his followers did not miss them. He not only gave us advice and directions.
He takes us by the hand and leads us; he strengthens us and guides us personally every
day. He does not just tell us about the Way; he is the Way. [Barclay, John, 157]
An Exegesis of John 14:1-12—EA25
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 14, 2017
Q9. The Psalmist said, “Teach me thy way, O Lord, that I may walk in thy truth. (Psalm 86:11)
“I have chosen the way of truth” (Psalm 119:30). Many men have told us the truth, but no
man embodied it. There is one important thing about moral truth. A man’s character
does not really affect his teaching of mathematics or Latin. But if a man proposes to teach a
moral truth, his character makes all the difference in the world. We have experienced the
opposites: the adulterer who teaches the necessity of purity; the greedy person who teaches
the value of generosity; the domineering person who teaches the beauty of humility; the
bitter person who talks of the beauty of love. None of these is bound to be effective. Moral
truth cannot be conveyed solely in words; it must be conveyed in example. No teacher
has ever embodied the truth he taught except Jesus. [Barclay, John, 158]
And we must remember the words of Pope Paul VI about the importance of authentic
Christian witness: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers,
and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” [Pope Paul VI Address
to Council of Laity, 1974] Thus, it is therefore primarily by their conduct and by their life
that the people of God will evangelize the world.
Q10. The writer of Proverbs said: “The commandment is a lamp, and the teaching a light;
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life” (Proverbs 6:23) “He who heeds
instructions is on the path of life” (Proverbs 10:17). In the last analysis what a person is
always seeking for is life. His search is not for knowledge for its own sake: but what will
make life worth living. A novelist makes one of his characters who has fallen in love say: “I
never knew what life was until I saw it in your eyes.” Love had brought life. That is what
Jesus does. Life with Jesus is life indeed. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except
through me. He alone is the way to God. In him we see what God is like, and he alone can
lead us into God’s presence without fear and without shame. [Barclay, John, 158, 159]
Q11. Our problem is not being able to recognize God in the world and people around
us. Indeed, in the whole of our created environment, God's presence is shouting out to
us. "The world is charged with the grandeur of God," wrote the poet Gerard Manley
Hopkins. Every little flower, every singing bird can say to us, "Who sees me sees the
Father". Theologian Richard McBrien in his book Catholicism (1196) says,
“The Catholic vision sees God in and through all things: other people, communities,
movements, events, places, objects, the world at large, the whole cosmos. The visible,
the tangible, the finite, the historical—all these are actual or potential carriers of the
Divine Presence. Indeed, it is only in and through these material realities that we can
encounter the invisible God.”