While I was on the road, this past week, I got word that a parishioner’s mother was laying near death at a nursing home. But I didn’t have the slightest idea what the name of the nursing home was or where it was located. I prayed for guidance. Now I knew the parishioner’s name and both her home and work phone numbers, and so I pulled over to the side of the road to call her at home on my cell phone. No one answered. Then I called the work number. A co-worker answered and I explained the situation. The co-worker told me that the woman was at her mother’s bedside. She told me the name of the nursing home and that it was somewhere in Providence. I knew my destination, but didn’t have the slightest idea how to get there. I called information and got the number of the nursing home. Then I called the nursing home and got the address, but when I asked where it was, the receptionist explained that it was located where the old Lying In Hospital used to be. Naturally, I didn’t know where the old Lying In Hospital used to be, but the receptionist didn’t seem to be able to help me, except to explain that it was across from the Newport Creamery. That didn’t help. I spied a Federal Express truck across the street, thanked the receptionist, hung up, pulled up to the truck and asked the driver for directions to the address I’d been given. He happened to know the way and after painstakingly following his directions, eventually, I got to the nursing home. After asking for the patient’s room number, I arrived at my destination.

   It strikes me that my mid-week excursion to that nursing home is not unlike life. In and of our selves, ultimately, we don’t know where we’re going, let alone how to get there. We may ask others what they think or may eavesdrop on their ideas, but otherwise, we grope along, using our intuition – hoping that we’re on the right path. In the process, we can become distracted by the details of living, the scenery along the way, and the other travelers, or we might even become anxious about whether we’ll ever arrive at our destination or become lost altogether.

   But, you see, that’s why God sent Jesus. He said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust in me also." I’ve come to think that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt so much as it is fear – fear that we’re on our own and that our lives will lead nowhere. But Jesus had something to say about that. He said, "In my Father’s House there are many homes. I am going to prepare a place for you."

   God sent Jesus to assure us that the journey of life actually does have a destination. And that destination isn’t just a final location. It’s a condition -- an eternal home with God. Now a home is a safe and familiar – a secure and restful -- environment for living. A home is prepared to welcome you, prepared to accept you, with others in it who are prepared to love you, to embrace you, to involve, refresh and restore you. Jesus came to explain where we’re headed, and He went there to prepare a home for us when our bodies die.

   There’s been quite a bit of public attention to death during the past several weeks, and, coming as it did, in the wake of Easter, the messages may just have seemed confusing. We heard many reports about people of Christian faith rallying to keep a person alive at all costs – in the off chance, as her family put it, that God might just perform a miracle to bring her back to her former life -- even though she’d been diagnosed to be in a chronically vegetative state for years. Why did they do that? I suspect their concern was to emphasize the value of life. And life is wonderful. It’s full of beauty, full people to love, of occasions for joy, and opportunities to exercise and challenge our God-given abilities. And yet, with all our technological capacities to prolong life, we can extend life indefinitely. But it seems to me that keeping a body functioning isn’t necessarily life, and forestalling death at all costs isn’t necessarily an act of faith. Jesus came to encourage us to make the most of life, for love, and to assure us that there is life beyond death. He went to prepare a home for us, there, with God for eternity.

   Then again, as Pope John Paul II lie dying, reporters said that the faithful gathered to pray for him in St. Peter’s Square and all over the world. What was their prayer? I hope that it was thankfulness for his life and ministry and prayer for a peaceful transition into eternity with God and not for prolonged life in this world. St. Paul wrote, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." This life is not all there is. It’s a prelude to eternity with God, which is our ultimate destination. Paul’s point was that he had come to understand that physical life in this world provided him with opportunities to follow His Lord by serving others as Jesus did, and that physical death would be gain because it would usher him to his ultimate reward – to be at home with God. Jesus came to assure us that we have an eternal place after we die, and He went there to prepare a home for us.

   But He also came to show us how to get there. When Thomas asked Him about it, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except by me." Our Lord didn’t simply leave us with the assurance of a destination and that we have a home there. He also showed us how to get there. Like that Federal Express driver, Jesus gave us directions. More than that, He said, "Come, follow me, and I’ll show you the way." Indeed, by the Holy Spirit, He actually says, I’ll come with you and show you the way.

   If life is a journey, as so many say, these days, then it’s possible to become lost and disoriented. We don’t, in and of our selves, know how to get to the destination. But Jesus showed us that our journey through life is not an aimless wandering – merely to enjoy the view and the resources we may find along the way -- hoping for the best in the end. Life has purpose as well as destination. When Jesus said that He was the way, among other things, He meant that He came to clear our way to God. By commitment to Him the roadblocks to God are cleared away. When He said that He was the truth, among other things, He meant that He truly communicated what God is like and how God wants us to live. We need to follow His directions. When He said that He was the life, among other things He meant that His way of living is the way that God wants us to live – forever. You see during our physical lives the goal is to live, as Jesus did, in such harmony with God and others that the transition to our eternal destination and its quality of life will be a natural one. In that sense our physical life is a training ground – so that the way we live here and now will increasingly become the way we will live at home with God, hereafter.

   Now, I realize that Christian claims – that Jesus’ claim – that "no one comes to the Father, but by me" – seems offensively exclusive, even chauvinistic. In fact, the Good News of Christ is this -- that trusting in Him and living the life that He demonstrated definitely leads to God and to eternal life with Him. That doesn’t mean to dismiss other ways, but simply to say that this particular way is absolutely sure and certain. Therefore, we need not live in fear of death at all. We can afford, instead, to live with reckless abandon – enjoying every opportunity to love as Christ did – in the firm conviction that through our Lord and Savior there is a home prepared for us with God forever. We can afford to say, "Live for God, love others as yourself, and enjoy every minute He gives you in the sure and certain hope that when you die Christ Jesus has already prepared a home for you with God, forever." That sets us free from fear of death and from the drive to live only for our selves to be able to do the greater things that Jesus promised we’d do.