How Can We Know the Way?
Apostle John records a tender yet troubling moment. Jesus tells His disciples, “You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas, honest and bewildered, blurts out, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:4–5).
Thomas poses a timeless question: “How can we know the way?”
We ask it in small matters and serious ones. Searching the supermarket for sausages, we seek a staff member who knows the shelves. We scan Google Maps when the footpath fades into a field. We consult advisers for finances, solicitors for disputes, surveyors for boundaries. When we are unsure, we look for someone who knows.
Life, however, is more than aisles and apps, more than maps and money. It brings confusion and crossroads, pressure and perplexity. We face moral mazes, relational rifts, spiritual storms. And beneath it all beats Thomas’s question: How can we know the way?
Jesus may not offer detailed directions; but He does offer Himself. He does not hand over a map; but becomes the Master and Counsellor. He promises “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). The way is not a principle, pattern or program but a Person. His way is not a route to rehearse, but a Redeemer to trust. He presents not information to gather, but incarnation to follow.
Philip Graham Ryken, asking “How Can Jesus Be the Only Way?”, writes, “Christianity is both universal and exclusive. Although Jesus is the only way to God, he is available to everyone” (www.modernreformation.org). If Christ is the Way, then He is not an optional extra but our essential guide.
And this Way is not distant or disinterested for He promises, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you” (Psalm 32:8). He offers guidance with grace and counsel with compassion.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” The Way is wonderful, but it is also narrow and costly. It leads to life, but it passes through surrender. May we, as church, when faced with fog and friction, in the waiting and the wandering, fix our eyes on Jesus. When the path is hidden, the Way is not. When the road gets rough, the Way remains.
Revd Michael Hogg