St. Philip and St. James

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Feast of St. Philip and St. James

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“My way is the right way, and all other ways are wrong.” What kind of fool would make a statement like that? How arrogant. How insensitive. How intolerant. These words are shocking and offensive to modern ears. Even though our world has great tolerance for all kinds of gross sins, this kind of talk is universally condemned. Our society teaches men to be serial adulterers. It encourages women to brag of their abortions. But it lashes out violently against anyone who claims to have the only right answer, the only truth. What bigotry. What intolerance. After all, what’s true for you may not be true for anyone else. Truth is relative. There are many roads to spirituality and many paths to God – or so we are told.
In contrast to this worldly idea, Jesus says, “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6). Perhaps you’re so familiar with this verse that the words have lost their shock value. Jesus claims to be the only way, the only truth, the only life. All other “truths” are false. Every other path leads to death and destruction. Only Jesus is right. Only his opinion matters. This means that every other opinion is worthless and wrong. The only path to salvation goes through Jesus. These are tough words for modern ears to hear. If any mere man claimed to be the only way, truth, and life, he would indeed be a liar and a fool. But Jesus is no mere man. When Jesus says, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life” he invokes the Divine Name, Yahweh. He claims to be God himself, the same God who revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush saying, “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex 3:14).
You may have been taught to place a high value on personal truth, on deciding what is right and wrong for you. But when it comes to sin, God doesn’t take a survey. He doesn’t consult the polls or the latest cultural trends. God simply declares: This is right and that is wrong. This behavior is god-pleasing and that behavior is sinful. Your opinion, my opinion about sin doesn’t matter. We don’t get a vote. God made the universe out of nothing; He gets to make the rules.
You may have been taught to place a high value on personal choice, on making your own way through life. But when it comes to salvation, God left us no choice. We weren’t given a menu of options to suit our own religious taste. There is only God’s religion. There is only the crucified Christ. Every manmade religion pretends to have found another way to God and this path is always one of the law. Be a good person, play by the rules, try your best and you’ll find salvation from whatever troubles you. Follow your heart, trust your feelings, look inside yourself to find the god within. This is the devil’s religion. It goes by many names, but the end is the same – it always leads to destruction. The only path to life is through Christ. God himself provided the only means of salvation. His religion is right; all other religions are wrong.
You may have been taught to place a high value on personal revelation, on discovering God in quiet meditation or in the beauty of nature. But everything God wants us to know about himself he has revealed to us in his word. There’s no other source of true knowledge and wisdom. You won’t find the saving God in philosophy or science. You won’t find him in the dark recesses of your mind. You will find him wherever the crucified Christ is preached. You will find him wherever his word is taught in its truth and purity. For only God’s word is true. Every other word is false. If this offends you, repent and believe the gospel.
Perhaps it just got a bit easier to understand why the Jews picked up rocks to throw at Jesus nearly every time he opened his mouth. Jesus was the furthest thing from a peace-loving Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. His words offended people and incited riots. He didn’t claim to have a truth – that we could have tolerated – he claimed to be Truth itself. Jesus didn’t claim to show people a way to God; he claimed to be the only Way. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed (Jn 3:19-20). The world has plenty of room for another savior, but no room at all for the only Savior.
Today, the world continues to demand that truth should peacefully coexist with error. It insists that light should live side by side with darkness. It mocks and reviles Christians who still speak of sin and repentance. “Oh you silly Christians. Do you still think that sex outside of marriage is a sin? How quaint. You actually confess that God created the world in six days? How unscientific. You believe that Jesus is the only way to God? How narrow-minded.” Jesus warns his church, “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mk 8:38). Confirmands, the world will demand that you conform to the beliefs of popular consensus. But we aren’t free to follow the dictates of this world; instead, we must follow Christ. This is what it means to be a Christian. Jesus commanded us, “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing […and] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20a). The Christian faith does not belong to men; it belongs to Christ. It’s his religion, his truth, not ours. We have no more power to change one word of Scripture than we do to create the universe from nothing or to wash away our own sin.
Sin is what separated us from God in the first place. It’s why we need to find the way back to him. It’s why we don’t have the truth and the life. But your sins can’t ever be forgiven by covering them up. They can’t be forgiven by calling them virtues. They can’t be forgiven by the devil’s religion of good works for righteousness. There’s only one way to receive forgiveness, only one way back to God – through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. At one time you were ashamed of Jesus and his words. You were afraid to suffer the reproach of Christ, afraid to be marked as his follower. But now by his blood this sin and every other sin have been forgiven. You were marked with the sign of the holy cross when you were reborn as a child of God. As a Christian, you hold fast to the word of truth which makes you shine as a bright light in this dark world (Phil 2:15). You don’t need the praise of this world. You don’t fear its hatred or its insults. You don’t even fear death, for you have Jesus and he is life itself. Jesus didn’t show you the way of salvation, he is the way. You didn’t choose God as your personal Savior, he chose you. He carried you down the road of salvation. He brought you to the font of baptism and places his body and blood into your mouth for the forgiveness of all your sins.
This is God’s truth and it’s the only truth. Perhaps when you look in the mirror you still see a sinner. Perhaps you still feel like a sinner. But what you see doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t count. Only what God says matters. Only his words count. And God has put his words in your pastor’s mouth and commanded him to speak them to you. When your pastor stood before you at the beginning of the service, he declared to you the words of Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus says to you today, “My way of salvation is the right way, and all other ways are wrong. My words of forgiveness are truth and every other word is false. And when all other life fails, the life that I give to you is eternal.” Amen.
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