title road
I love these live stories.
That's why I like non-fiction documentaries like Animal Kingdom and Human Age among TV shows. Of course, even if it's realistic on TV, it's selected and edited.
Anyway, I enjoy living real stories rather than ideological ones.
Even the sermons are more moving when they talk about real things. The person who gave the testimony a while ago also said that the first-person testimony of Ecclesiastes was moving. As a small person before God, self-confessed testimony is sympathetic and I think it is a form suitable for the lay church. I think in my own way that our use of the word witness instead of preaching has something to do with this meaning.
God also testified of the truth by sending a real person, Jesus, to the world, and we also feel the reality more through the way Jesus lived.
I have neither breadth nor depth of faith. I have never read the Bible calmly to the end. So, of course, I do not have the ability to interpret the Bible holistically. From 30 years ago, I thought I should read it to the end, and it stopped at Genesis every time. So, when I hear stories from people who read the Bible a lot in chapels, etc., I sometimes feel a little embarrassed and withdrawn.
However, the Bible does not say that you have to read the Bible a few times to get to heaven, but rather, giving examples such as tax collectors and Pharisees, saying, “There is something more important than form.” I find some comfort in these words.
Of course, it was because of my laziness and lack of piety that I did not read the Bible diligently, but if I had to make an excuse, it was that when I first encountered the Bible, it felt so easy for a scripture. I understand pretty well what you're talking about. Also, I think I can understand why it is described so easily. It felt to me more like a practical book rather than a noble theory book.
As I said in the previous testimonies, it has been about 30 years since I came into contact with the Jesuit Church. I can clearly distinguish between when I did not believe and after believing. In short, I can say that I have definitely seen the benefits of the Jesuits. It was through Jesuits that I understood the world in which I was born and lived, and I understood the principles of the world. I can tell you that my eyes are brighter than before I believed. I could understand the meaning of the word going into the light. When I said that I am the way, the truth, and the life, I understood that the unmoving way exists for the moving life, and that life itself becomes a way and is with God.
The Word was not dogmatic and did not restrain me from wanting to live freely. The road was not a one-way road, it was an infinitely open road that transcended time and space. It wasn't a 'road without a road'. It was a clear way for us to know.
If you look at the teachings of Jesus, he did not select special people who were completely different from us and systematically educate his disciples in an educational institution, but he taught them while living in the field of life. He showed us the way of Jesus.
Therefore, I feel that the way Jesus said in the Bible today, ‘I am the way,’ is a little different from the way of Lao-tzu’s ‘The Road to the Road’.
The way in Jesus' day would have been different than it is today. I don't know for sure, but it seems like the road was generally rough except in the city. There must have been a desert road leading to death if the wrong step was taken, and there would have been a road where robbers appeared. Therefore, in some cases, the road may have been something that was directly related to life.
In today's Bible, at the end of John 14:5, Thomas asks Jesus, "You do not know where you are going, how can you know the way?" I don't know the destination, but I think that's kind of the question, how can you know the way? Then Jesus said, “I am the way.”
The road we ride to our destination is both a means and an obstacle. The history of human civilization can be said to be the process of reducing these obstacles. But today Jesus' way is a destination in itself. Because the way is the truth and the life. Therefore, there is no problem in the way of Jesus whether we walk on the road, rest or die.
But after saying, ‘It is the way, the truth, and the life,’ he says, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’ Earlier, I said that the Bible felt easy, but this statement was difficult. It felt like a narrow-minded and sectarian person, not like the God who created this world, who did the grand design.
It was a word that confuses me with the thought that ‘all humans are God’s creation’, ‘have the image of God;’ ‘Therefore, everyone has a shared code that can communicate with God’.
It wasn't an infinitely open road, but it was like a baduk road. It was like the road of redemption, not the road of freedom. Even though the neighborhood is noisy because of sects and denominations, I thought that I had to think about these things inside and show it on the outside.
So, I asked a pastor I work with in the neighborhood about this verse. At that time, the pastor said that he understood the meaning of 'considering the situation at the time, we should not have the law toward the Jews. Hearing these words, Jesus' path was widened and he felt free.
At one time, the Pharisees cleared the area and made a few roads and said, 'You must not go out of this road.' But Jesus said, “No, your ways are infinite.” He made a new way. No, he showed us the original way, not the new way. I don't know if our new road has anything to do with this road.
The road does not move. That way you can do things that move. The nuance of the word Saegil seems to be moving a bit, so I told Mr. Jeong Dae-hyun, ‘Gil Church’ or ‘That Road Church,’ why ‘Saegil’? Let's do something like 'Children in Saenara wake up early' What does this mean? I've been asked. Perhaps the teacher said to me, 'Just think of something easy'. This isn't an important issue... Even after I said it, I felt like I was making up a word for it.
These days, thinking more broadly about religion, they say that there are many ways to reach the summit, but there is only one summit, and others say that there are many ways to come down, but they meet in one place at the sea. This is also happening in my family.
Actually, I thought a lot about how great it would be if my parents believed in Jesus and died in peace. And I sometimes told such stories to Baek Joo-hee, who lives with me. However, I don't think it will be because of my weak faith. So these days, when the other brothers are not around, I quietly tell my mother, ‘Mother, I am living well by virtue of your merits. I say, ‘Thank you, mother,’ and I sometimes share exciting stories of the eldest son with my father. Then you both like it. I think what the two of you like is not that they like you because they understand you, but that they like the way they want to help each other. Also, it seems that you think that 'Jesusism, which the eldest child believes in, is to give each other priority over religion'. may come to mind.
The Gospel of John we read today is a little more difficult than the previous ones because it has spiritual and interpretive meanings in light of the previous descriptions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke focusing on the words and actions of Jesus. Even in the Gospel of John, there are many cases where the disciples ask Jesus that they do not know. In verse 5 before the passage we read today, Thomas said that he did not know where Jesus was going or the way, and in verses 8:9 that follows, Philip also asks to show God. I think this is what Jesus' disciples ask Jesus on our behalf, any questions we might have. To this, Jesus usually answers, “If you see my life, do you not understand it or am I not showing it to you?” Today's Bible verse 4 also says, 'You know the way to where I am going,' and verse 7 also says, 'If you had known me, you would have known my Father. Now you know my Father, and you have seen him.’
I love this saying. And for me, it is a great way to meet God.
The world existed before Jesus came. People lived, and so did birds. The clouds would have flowed, and the wind would have blew. And God's way was already there.
2000 years ago, God sent Jesus to show God's way more clearly. He ate and drank alcohol. And he died. He said it was finished and died comfortably. His death was not the end. His death was just his last life on earth. He showed that he was still alive in Mark's attic and on the road of Damascus. The writers of the Bible testify that all of Jesus' life was a way. That record is now our way. Last week, Brother Sang Sang Ryu also talked about nature, conscience, and the Bible.
The way of the world created by God continues. Even with the advent of automobiles and computers, the road that does not change continues. The way of God in the beginning, where there were no religions or sects, without a single point of stopping, is continuing. It continues now in the universe, in the cell, in the church and outside the church. I want to be on that road. I want to walk that road. Because I believe that the path is the path of freedom.
Prayer
Lord, if you have lost your way and do not know you are lost, if you are on the road and know you are on the road, and if you have foolishness to think that you are the way of God by making your way, Lord, grant your grace and enlighten your eyes, Amen.