UCA SA - Reflection of the Week

Way – Truth – Life

by Fergus McGinley

John’s Gospel is replete with very direct, personal, “I am” statements by Jesus. Last week in the lectionary it was “I am the good shepherd” (10:11); this week we have perhaps the most well-known of all, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (14:6).

Jesus bundles the three things – way, truth, life – together, so presumably they overlap and flow into each other. Before they were called ‘Christians’, the early followers of Jesus were referred to as belonging to ‘the Way’ – see Acts 9:2. The Greek word hodos, translated as ‘way’, can refer to a road or a journey, but it can also refer to a method of action, a course of conduct, or, yes, a way of life – so here we see the overlap of ‘way’ and ‘life’.

In the original Greek, ‘life’ is zōē – familiar in the English word ‘zoo’ – which refers not just to life in a neutral, biological sense, but fullness or abundance of life (see John 10:10), even divine life; life in the Spirit. Ah, now we’re talking – or rather Jesus is!

‘Truth’, smack-bang in the middle, is āletheia – hence the lovely Christian name ‘Alecia’, actually pronounced ‘aletheia’ in Spanish. In the Greek, āletheia has a much richer meaning than the standard modern one of simple correspondence to fact. The Google AI Overview will tell you that it “more deeply means ‘unconcealment’, ‘disclosure’, or ‘unhiddenness’” – there’s a sense of the revealing of a reality or existence that has somehow become hidden to us, that we have therefore forgotten. It is a deep philosophical idea, and there’s even a god in Greek mythology for it, Alethea the daughter of Zeus.

Yes, the three things Jesus is claiming he is in John 14:6 are now starting to come together beautifully! “I am the literal divine revelation”, Jesus is telling us, “of a truly authentic way of life”. What exactly is this authentic way of life that Jesus reveals? Well, you just have to look to the basic content of all Jesus’s teachings: selfless living in community, caring, sharing, working together to make the world a better place. And why is this authentic way of life somehow hidden to us? Well, sin of course – our narrow self-focus, which is virtually our default orientation to the world, literally blinds us to the real needs and concerns of others – and to our own, for that matter. Through faith, trust, belief in Jesus, now the Spirit, however, the scales fall from our eyes and we can see clearly what we can do, how we can live, in order to receive the blessings of an abundant life ourselves, and participate most effectively in bringing Jesus’s wonderful vision of the Kingdom of God to reality in the world.