“We drown our sins in the Red Sea of Christ’s blood.”
William Price
The suffering servant is described in the book of Isaiah with some very familiar passages, verses like, “I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6) This verse was written over seven hundred years before Christ and yet capture the sacrifice of the cross and the abuse he would suffer at the hands of the Roman soldiers. Of course, Christ was well aware of these passages and on the very night he was going to experience them, he was not just thinking about Isaiah 50:6, he was doing the verse that appears earlier in the chapter, “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.” (Isaiah 50:4) How do we know this was happening? Please read John 14:1-6. These verses, and here is an example, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms…” were spoken to comfort the disciples and to encourage their weary hearts and to sustain them through the events that were at hand. What an amazing Savior. Let’s take comfort that his desire for his people is to sustain them through trials, not chastise them for their soon coming abandonment of him.
It is in this context that Jesus speaks one of the most memorable verses in the gospel of John, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Regarding this verse, the meditation of Thomas à Kempis is often quoted:
Follow thou me. I am the way and the truth and the life. Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living. I am the way which thou must follow; the truth which thou must believe; the life for which thou must hope. I am the inviolable way; the infallible truth, the never-ending life. I am the straightest way; the sovereign truth; life true, life blessed, life uncreated. [cited in D. A. Carson, PNTC, 492]
May the Lord bless you today as you follow the one who is the way, the truth, and the life. Have a blessed week and we will see many of you on Sunday.
Love in Christ,
Pastor Dale
