‘I Am…The Life’

‘I Am…The Life’

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
John 14:6

What is life? Again, we find something of which we speak often, most difficult to define in real terms. Life is more than mere existence. Life has various elements which comprise it. There is the physical, the metal, the spiritual, and the social. These elements of life occur simultaneously and intertwine continually. In our text Christ declares, ‘I am…the Life.’ What can He mean? Moreover, what must He mean? When it comes to Life, Christ is first, the Creator of it, “for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’” Beyond that, He is the Giver of it. ‘He gives to all, life, breath, and all things.’ He is the upholder of it. ‘In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.’ He, being Life, upholds it in the face of death. ‘Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”’ In short, there is no life apart from Christ. All else is, in fact, mere existence. It is Christ who makes this thing we call ‘life,’ more than that. Apart from Him there is no real meaning or purpose, or point to ‘life.’ To be in Him and with Him is to have life, and that for eternity. ‘And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.’ To exist apart from Him is to become absorbed with the temporal, and the fleeting. Christ turns our attention unto Himself, so that we can come to an understanding of what life is, and of how to obtain it. He is the Sum of all it means to live. Let us dwell today upon the larger issues which face us all. Let us turn to Christ, who said, ‘I am…the Life.’

O, Christ, Who is our Life,
we rejoice in You today,
that You are to us all we want and need,
for this life and for that which is to come.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning