Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus answered, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him" (Jn. 14:5-7).

I am the way.....The new sect of believers in Jesus Christ followed "The Way" before they were first called "Christians" at Antioch.  "The Way" meant at first only that they had accepted Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, that they worshipped only Him, that they wanted to know all they could about him (thus producing finally the Gospels as they sought to know all they could find out about him).  After the First Council in Jerusalem, where the apostles debated how much of the Jewish law had to be followed in "The Way," they wrote to the new, young assemblies that all that was required was to abstain from food polluted by idols, from the meat of strangled animals, from blood, and from sexual impurity (Acts 15).  When the apostles -- all Jews -- saw that "God had given the Holy Spirit [to the Gentiles] just as He did to us," they too accepted God's plan of salvation. 

Jesus said that He is "The Way."  He gave one commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.  He even told us how to "love:"  Remain in Me, and I will remain in you....Remain in my love.

The church is the gathering of those who want to remain in Jesus; they want to teach and learn from one another how to "remain in Him" by hearing testimonies, studying the scriptures, sharing their faith.  They love hearing stories of those whose faith in Jesus was not disappointed, despite martyrdom and suffering.  They love seeing examples of Jesus carrying out His mission through those who remain in Him -- feeding the poor, healing the sick, releasing the prisoners, building churches, hospitals, schools, hospices and so on.  Sometimes they need to come together to pray and to seek answers to difficult questions.  They need someone who can speak with authority regarding what the church as a whole assembly has discerned to be the leading of the Holy Spirit. 

I am the Truth....there are many opinions, but Truth resides in One Person.  If we want to know the Truth, we must "remain in Him."  We cannot seek the opinions of the many who do not remain in Him.  If there is someone who remains in Him more than we ourselves, we can seek advice, counsel, insight....but only so that we ourselves can enter the Truth and remain in Him through constant and fervent prayer.  This is the key:  to seek Jesus Christ.  Our only question should be, "How do we seek Him?  How do you seek Him?"  If we want to know the Truth, we must come to know Him.  There is no other way.

St. Seraphim said that there is only one purpose behind our prayers, good works, giving, or whatever we do -- and that is to draw closer, to receive the Holy Spirit.  When someone came to him to seek the way to God, Seraphim told that person to notice the warmth, the peace, the joy that was flooding the seeker's soul at the moment.  Seraphim had not preached, had not even prayed aloud, had not given much wisdom or opinion or learning from books, but remaining in Christ, he was able to point out the Gift of God bestowed on one who was seeking the truth.

I am the Life....He didn't use the Greek word "bios," meaning physical life, but "zoey" meaning eternal, everlasting life, the kind of life God breathed into Adam's physical body to animate it.  He IS God's breath in us; He IS our life -- and that life gives animation also to our physical bodies, as well as to our mind and emotions (psyche, in Greek).  As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted to the Son to have life in himself (Jn. 5:26).  All of John's Gospel from beginning to end speaks of the LIFE that Jesus grants (breathes into) all who come to Him.  He takes it for granted that all who come to Him are sinners and need a new birth.  When He washed the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper, He told Peter, "Unless I wash you, you will have nothing to do with Me."  He alone washes us and brings us to eternal life.

Christians are as different from one another as were Peter the fisherman and John "the Divine."  They are all in the process of learning The Way, the Truth, and of receiving Life.  They are all struggling to remain in Him, who Alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He says, "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world....Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (Jn. 17: 14-17).

If we want to know the Way, if we want to know the Truth, if we want eternal Life, there is no other way to the Father.  We must seek Jesus Alone and remain in Him.  He is the Life and the Light of the world.  If we do not believe this, we make His words of no account.   On the last day, there will be "many" who say, "We have done great things in your name." But His answer to them is, "I never knew you."  He can do great things for the world without us, but He can only "know" (experience) us if we come to Him and remain in Him.