John 14:4-6 “You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know the 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.”

No one comes to the Father except through Jesus. Many people criticize Christians for saying that Jesus is the only way. But it’s not our idea. Isn’t that what Jesus’ words say? Christians who take Jesus’ words as they read are accused of being narrow-minded and better than thou. They are suspected of wanting certain people to be lost, of wishing that some people don’t make it to heaven. I know of a pastor who made his congregation cover up the words of this verse painted on the wall in the front of his church. “Would God really condemn a person just because he’s Buddhist?” he once asked them in a Bible class.

The problem is that people don’t understand the nature of our human problem. They misdiagnose the human condition. They look at the standards of right and wrong in Christianity and other world religions, they note that the morals are similar if not altogether the same, and they wonder how Christians think they are better.

But we don’t believe we are better. The issue isn’t getting the right set of rules and keeping them well enough to satisfy God. No one lives good enough for God, not even Christians. That’s the problem. All of us should be lost. No one should make it home. No one–not a Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim, an Atheist, a Rastafarian, the member of some flying saucer cult–none of them can pay for their sins themselves. None of them can live and love so perfectly that God would say, “Okay, good enough. You’re in.”

It’s not that we are better than everyone else. It’s that we know that everyone else is just as bad as us. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. No one is righteous, not even one. What we need is not someone to show us what to do. What we need is someone to rescue us himself. What we need is a Savior who will pick us up in his arms and carry us home.

So that is what Jesus does. He doesn’t tell Thomas here, “I will show you the way. Watch me and see how it’s done.” He says, “I AM the way.” Jesus is as much the car as he is the road. He isn’t a swim instructor giving lessons to drowning people. He is a lifeguard pulling them to safety. He is the way that gets us home, he is the truth of our rescue from sin and hell. He is our life in all that he has done to save our souls. No other prophet in any other faith even claims to do this. They are all guides, teachers, examples. Only Jesus is a Savior, a Rescuer, a Deliverer who does the work for us. That makes him the exclusive route for getting home.

Isn’t this what he was inviting the disciples to believe earlier? “I am going to prepare a place for you.” He isn’t telling them that he is in housekeeping at the hotel, making the beds and putting out clean towels. He isn’t telling them that he has a construction or decorating project to do.

Jesus is in accounting. This is the night before the cross. In the next 24 hours Jesus went and paid our bill in full. He died the death our sins deserved. He satisfied God’s every demand, settled every account. It all secures our place in our Father’s house and guarantees our reservation there.