Jesus comes Out. Tis a Difficult Thing … who can abide it?

Jesus comes Out.  Tis a Difficult Thing … who can abide it?  Matthew 7.13-14

In truth, I learned a lot, as I asked Lisa, an IBM consultant, a lot of questions about her Lubavitch¹ experience, and she loved talking about the many aspects of her very devout life.  Raj, who lives in England, read our hands to tell us about ourselves.  Then Lisa said, ‘All religions have common ground, and then things that set them apart.’  Poor Raj in the middle nodded, and I said, ‘That is quite true.’  They asked me for my card, wanting to know more about what I do, and as we deplaned, I hugged them both ‘good bye’.  Interesting.

Segue.  I thought I was finished with the wide and narrow gate, but not quite yet.  You see, Jesus had another point in talking about the narrow gate as he comes to the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it’… As he states in other places, in other words, there is only one God, and only one way to have relationship with him.  Is this what Jesus meant when talking about the narrow path?

Yet if you melt down the thinking in our culture right now, the prevailing thought seems to be, 

If you believe something, 

  and you are really sincere about it,

     then it must be true—or at least true for you. 

Picture a mountain with God ensconced at the top, and people on many paths—some go straight up the mountain, others embark on circuitous routes, but all are endeavoring to get to him, moving up from any direction, right?²  Could be Buddhism’s eight-fold path or the many things required of Muslims or Mormons to earn their hopeful eternal glory; as long as someone tries to do the right thing, be good to other people, and believes in something bigger than himself, then really, ‘don’t all paths lead to God?’  Indeed many have deduced that, no matter the pathway, if it moves one’s life or direction to a higher being in whom they believe, then all paths lead to God.  And further, God would not be just if he allowed only one way of salvation.  We have now come to a time where it is deemed offensive and certainly politically incorrect to believe there is only one way to God, and downright dumb, potentially ruinous, to utter aloud that belief.

 From the Message:  That is not Narrow Path thinking; definitely not the road to which Jesus was pointing.  “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.” Matthew 7.13-14

What is the way to God then?  Jesus clearly answers:  I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  He does not leave it at that; he draws the line in the sand:  No one comes to the Father except through Me.  John 14.6

Jesus’ words, not mine.  My dad used to say, ‘Well this will separate the men from the boys!’  I do not know if that is necessarily an apt euphemism, but the fact is, these thoughts force folks to choose--something we have been talking about of late.  Do you and I believe that Jesus is the only way to God, or are there many ways?

We cannot pick and choose what we want to believe about what Jesus said, and he states that he alone is Truth.  And don’t you see, that’s the thing about Truth?  It either is or it is not.  You cannot bend Truth to make it relative to you, to make it what you want, or even to practice it in a way that makes sense to you.  Truth is, or it is not.

Tis a Difficult Thing … who can abide it?