Is Jesus the Only Way?

This week we are thinking and talking about whether or not Jesus is the only way, or put another way: is there anyone better to follow?

The short answer to this question is “No.”

No, there is no one better to follow. No, there is no other way. Period. Done.

Now that crisp “No.” answer (especially followed by a period) caused me all sorts of problems in my walk. Ooo, ooo, ooo – did I want to buck that system! If you said something like that to me 10 years ago, an eruption of defensive reasoning would pour out. Along with the question “Why?” more times than you would care to count.

At that point in my life, I saw Jesus as a member of an elite group of pretty cool folks; all of whom basically said the same stuff about love, compassion, mercy and peace. I did not understand why I needed to mark Him out as somehow different.

I have also had the benefit of an up close look at many other faith systems. And let me tell you something, there are some beautiful, wise, right things going on in every other faith system I have ever encountered. For example, I have found in Buddhism a voice so clear and strong for compassion and peace that I deeply resonate with the value. A favorite Buddhist author of mine, Ticht Nacht Han, speaks with clarity about the link between peace and compassion:

“We often think of peace as the absence of war… But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance….To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. ”

Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that true?

Or another example is the beautiful, wise Sufi poet, Rumi. Here he writes with such clarity about our longing for God:

“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?”

You see… there are reasons that people wonder about the singularity of Jesus; or more specifically, of Christianity. They wonder because they see such beauty, such wisdom coming from these men of other faiths. Why? Why can I not follow the Buddha or Han or Rumi and find God? Aren’t they pointing to Him?

And here is what I think… you can find God in these men in the same way that you can find God in a mountain, in shared tears, in the expanse of the cosmos, in a sleeping infant or in the ocean. Because God created them, breathed into them wisdom and beauty, you can see Him in the glimmers of that beauty. But just as a mountain or shared tears or a sleeping infant cannot represent God fully, neither can they.  But just as a mountain or shared tears or a sleeping infant cannot undo the problem of sin, neither can they. And because they cannot do either of these things, following them will always lead you to a dead end. Knowing some things, but being wrong about others.

But Jesus… well Jesus can do both of those things. And Jesus… well Jesus gives us the whole package.

I know this with my head… You see, I know what sets Jesus apart from any other human prophet, teacher or moral leader. It is not that He contains beauty or said wise things or even that he died for the faith, it is His claims of being the son of God and the signs that backed Him up. C.S. Lewis has my favorite quote on this issue:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

I also know this with my heart… You see, I know Jesus is different because He has been different to me. He has walked with me down a path that began with fascination (i.e.,"Wow! You know this guy had some pretty cool things to say. But man was he weird! What's the deal with spitting in mud to heal some one's eyes?"), evolved into a deep respect (i.e., "OK. This guy had some things very, very right about this world. He seemed to have his finger on the heartbeat of our brokenness and to be suggesting things that might actually heal it."), developed into awe (i.e., "There is no way this guy was just a great teacher. He never made a mistake. He never said one thing I can criticize or see through. He never once acted like a hypocrite. He was love 100% of the time. He is the Messiah, the Son of God.") and finally to sheer joy! This was the phase (for those of you closest to me) when I started saying things like - "Jesus is a radical !" And what I meant to express was my full joy and connection with his person. I would often think to myself "His teachings are full of challenge. There is no BS in Him. There is no placating in Him. He is ALL challenge and ALL LOVE. I've never seen anything like Him. I am blown away by Him."

And now, well now, we are onto new territory. Specifically, the growing love I have for Him is starting to loosen from stories about what He said or how He helped other people or even His vision and love for the World and is starting to become about something much, much more personal.

There is a line in a song entitled “The Face of Love” by Sanctus Real (listen to it here): "I may not know the shape of Your face but I can feel Your heart changing mine." And when I heard that lyric the other day on the radio, I just felt every hair on my body stand up and tears spring to my eyes: “Jesus is here, He loves me and His love is changing my heart”.

You see, for me the Buddha, Rumi, Han, Father Joe (my favorite Catholic priest), C.S. Lewis, even Joshua Brandt cannot change my heart. They may glimmer and glow. They may challenge and teach. They may even draw me in toward the Lord. But it is only through Jesus, (who He was, the life He lived, the death He endured, the resurrection He promised, the Spirit He sent) that my heart is actually healed. That makes Him the one and only; my one and only.

 Dearest Creator God,

Thank You for Your Son. Thank You for the fact that we do not have only the beauty and wisdom available in creation, but that You instead showed us Yourself. Continue to humble and grow us in the knowledge of Jesus. May we be ever deepening in our love toward Him and one another.

I love you too. Amen.

So Ladies here’s your assignment:

1. Own it. What has been your experience of getting to know Jesus? What attributes of Jesus are you most drawn to? 

2. Wrestle it. Where are you at about Jesus singularity? Do you believe that Jesus is the only way to God?

3. Live it. How does acknowledging Jesus as singular and unique influence your daily life? For me it has meant prioritizing His words, His ways and His love above all things. This has often been difficult, but it is REALLY practical. Let’s talk about how to practically put Jesus first.

Finding the Cross

So we were asked this Easter Sunday to consider whether or not Jesus was the only way… whether or not the cross was the only way…

I remember the first time I really started thinking about this issue. I was probably 12 or 13. The sheer horror of the cross overtook me. The idea that God authored that horrible death disgusted me. Torture, hatred, blood, death… why?

I decided then, that if God was: (1) loving and (2) real; he would have come up with something much better than a bloody horrific mess to deal with sin. And because of that (and the rampant hypocrisy I saw in the Church) I walked away from the faith. I walked away for a long time – somewhere in the ballpark of 12 years. I tried on a great number of faiths/anti-faiths in that time; including but not limited to: Paganism, Agnosticism, Buddhism and (as I affectionately called it) Paula-faith. None of it ever settled or satisfied for very long.

I was 25 and my daughter, Sydney, was 5 months old when God finally caught up to me. He found me at 2 in the morning rocking Sydney as she slept peacefully in my arms. I remember looking at her little sleeping face and being hit by a tidal wave of love so big it felt like my chest was going to explode. In fact, I started to cry because it physically hurt to love her so much. And as I rocked her… overwhelmed by love… I felt God whisper to my heart “And that is just a fraction of how much I love you.”

Something shifted in that moment. I was going to find Him again.

But it was a rough road back to the cross. I was mad about a lot of things. I didn’t understand sin. I didn’t understand wrath. I didn’t understand hell. And as a result, I DID NOT understand the cross.

I wish I could, in a single post, walk you through all of the lessons God has taught me to bring me back to the cross. I want to talk to you about how he taught me about sin and wrath and even hell. But today I want to highlight one lesson – the lesson that sets Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, at the center of redemption story that will eventually claim the whole world. And at the center of that lesson is a very bloody and brutal cross. A cross that simultaneously taught me about three things:  

First, the cross showed me about people, power and sin. Look, even if you don’t think Jesus was the son of God, you have to admit that the cross seems a rather brutal punishment. I mean he didn’t kill anybody. He walked around talking about forgiveness and love. He even healed people. But he also upset the status quo. And His open rejection of the power structure in the Jewish community elicited the most obvious manifestation of hatred and pride and sin that I can think of. And it came from the religious leaders, the MORAL ELITE, of the day. The folks most people thought of as the ‘religiously committed’, ‘devoted to God’ kinda people killed Him… brutally… and for no reason accept He scared them. That is naked sin. That is the reality of the thing lurking around in all of our hearts. It is capable of much worse that you can imagine.  

So the cross exposes sin. If you look directly at the cross, you see what unaddressed sin makes humans into and it is UGLY.

Second, the cross showed me about love. I remember the day God taught me this lesson. I was praying while I was making my bed or folding laundry or something equally mundane. I was being snarky with God about how he didn’t know one thing about suffering because he didn’t know anything about losing a child. And then He said (again to my heart) “Oh really? What about watching your child be brutally murdered, having the power to stop it at any second, but you don’t?” I fell to my knees next to my bed. My breath taken away. I knew right then that I was not capable of a love like that. That there is no love in my flesh that sacrifices Sydney for others. That I had never seen a love like that in any story I had ever read, in any religion I had ever explored.

So the cross demonstrates love. If you look directly at the cross, you see exactly how far God is willing to go.

Third, what the cross showed me was redemption. You see, the cross during Jesus time was not just a horrific death but also a POWERFUL emotional symbol. It represented the crushing authority of the Roman Empire and the merciless death of those who dared to defy it. Think the swastika but with actual dead, decaying people hanging on it. It was intended to elicit raw fear and complete submission. Now, walk down the street. Check out the cover of your Bible. Look at your own neck. What is likely there – a cross! The most recognizable emotional symbol on the planet. Except now it symbolizes GRACE. It symbolizes LOVE. God has literally taken the most vicious emotional symbol in human history and redeemed it.

So the cross demonstrates redemption. If you look directly at the cross, you see exactly what God can take back and make beautiful.

So is the cross the only way? I don’t know. Could God have come up with something different? Perhaps – He is God after all. But when I look at the cross now I feel confronted, loved and redeemed. And I can’t think of any other way to make that happen.

Dearest Abba,

Thank you. Thank you for your patience with this hard-hearted, stubborn child of yours. Thank you for the cross. Thank you that you are willing to teach me, day in and day out, about Your ways. Happy Easter. I am so delighted to be your child.

I love you, too. Amen.

So Ladies here’s your assignment:

(1)   Own it. Has God brought you to the cross? If yes, how did get you there? If no, what is it like to be asked this question? What comes up for you when you consider the cross?

(2)   Wrestle it. I mentioned that I walked away from the faith due to my initial reaction to the horror of the cross. What is your initial, genuine reaction to the cross? Have you ever wondered “why the cross”? If yes, what did that look like? If no, how do you understand it?

(3)   Live it. Let’s talk about the implications of living in light of the cross. How does being confronted with sin, being loved unimaginably and knowing that complete redemption is the goal affect the way you live your life?