The One Way to God

One

The Human Destiny and the Impossibility of its Fulfillment 

The great paradox of the human condition is that we have been created with a purpose that we cannot achieve. By our own efforts, we are doomed to a fundamental frustration of our nature. Why? Because we are creatures, and we are made for union with God. We are finite, and we are made for the infinite. 

We have cut ourselves off from Him from sin, we cast ourselves out of heaven and we are too small and weak to climb back to Him. Or, to switch the analogy, imagine a river that’s infinitely wide, infinitely deep, or has an infinitely strong current. The point is, there’s no way for a small, finite human being to swim across that river. But the problem is, we are born on the wrong side of the river. Every part of us wants to get to the other side but there is no bridge by which we can get across.

This is the fundamental human dilemma. It’s the problem we’re all born into.

Two

Christ – A Land Bridge Formed

So there we are, the human race, walking back and forth across the shore, looking in vain for some way to get across. And then, at just one point, one point and no other, from the far shore, the shore we want to get to, the land stretches out across the river until it meets our side. A land bridge is formed, a place where the far shore meets the near shore. In fact, it’s a place where the far shore becomes the nearshore. Which means you can get across the river.

That’s what happens when Christ is born, the far shore becomes the near shore, the divine becomes human. Which means: there’s hope. God has made a way from earth to heaven. And Christ, that tiny child sleeping in straw, is that way. He is the only hope. He is the only bridge. He is the only way.

Three

The Only Way

In John 14, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He doesn’t say, “I am one of many ways, one of many truths, or one of your various options for life.”

There’s only one bridge to God, Jesus Christ. No other religion even claims to have found a different case where God has become man, where the far shore has become the near shore. So if you don’t go across the bridge that is Jesus, you don’t get to God.

Which means you have to be very careful not to say, “Well, everyone has their own path to God.” That’s not really true. Everyone has the same path, it’s Jesus.  Maybe people can get across that bridge without knowing it. Hopefully, they can. But there’s only one bridge, there’s only one path to salvation, and if you know where to look for it, you’ll definitely have a better chance of getting across it.

That Child in the manger, He’s the only chance anybody has of getting to Heaven. He’s the one you want to go to.

Four

The Two Bridge-Builders

Now this Bridge, this Person who is both Divine and Human, has a source for both His Divinity and His Humanity. As it happens, these are His two Parents. His Father, God the Father, is the one who supplies Jesus’ Divinity. So He works from the Heaven-side of things to build the Bridge of Salvation.

But Jesus also has a mother, a human mother, and she’s the one who supplies Jesus’ humanity. She’s actually the one who builds the Bridge of Salvation from our side of the river.

So there are two parents, two bridge-builders – God Our Father and Mary Our Mother. The Father is the one the Bridge leads to and the mother is the one who leads you to the bridge,

Five

Coming to Jesus Through Mary

So do you see how important Mary is? Do you see that our salvation depends on what she partially built? Do you see why she is there holding the Christ-Child? 

She is the gatekeeper to the Bridge she built. She is the one who gives access to the Baby she bore. Jesus is the Bridge, the one Bridge, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If you want to find Him, come to Mary. If you want to find salvation, come and find Him like the Shepherds, and the Magi – in the arms of His mother.