Today's first reading (Bible:Acts+7:55-60) points us to the core value of Christianity. The climax of the story of the first known Christian martyr, Stephen, is his vision of Jesus, in the place of authority, at God's right hand, standing to come to his help. This vision gives him the strength to face his death without fear, and in imitation of Jesus, to forgive his enemies. Here is the heart of the Christian religion - seeing Jesus, in such a way that our lives are changed. How we see Jesus, and the effect this has on our living is a key issue. So let me ask you, please, to turn to the person next to you, and exchange with them a few of the words which express who Jesus is to your way of thinking....
The bible offers us more than a hundred images & ideas to help us get a fuller, truer picture of Jesus & his significance. You can find a sheet with many of these & words for God & the Holy Spirit on the table by the door, which I commend to you for your daily meditation....
The central quest of all religions could well be expressed as the search for who God is, and the implications of this for life. Let's read Bible:John+14:1-14....
"Show us the Father and that will be enough for us." (v.8), so says Philip. We need to understand who God is and what he asks of us, in order to be sure we are living life in the right way. Similarly we need to understand the aim & rules of a game in order to play it aright, or of a project if we are to contribute to it.
Jesus answer to Philip's request expresses a central truth of Christianity - "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (v.11). So if we want to understand what God is like and the way in which he acts, we can look at the man Jesus, who shows us God in a way we can understand. And from that we can see how to live in our turn. We need the full bible picture for a correct understanding, which is why the bible gives us to many balancing images, but in today's reading we see in particular three words Jesus uses to describe himself & thus God.

1. Jesus is the way. Jesus is the one who enables us to share a relationship with God - "no one comes to the Father except through me" (v.6). It's not only that he shows us the way to get right with God, but he is himself the way to get right with God. He died & rose again as the one who reconciles us to God. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" (2Cor 5v19). As we accept that Jesus died for us, turn away from all that spoils our friendship with God, and entrust ourselves to Jesus, he gives us the power to become children of God, who know him personally as Father. Only when we acknowledge Jesus as Saviour & Lord is it possible to share a meaningful relationship with God. Jesus is the key.
What a joy it is to see God as the one who wants to share love with us, to be our Father & friend. Here's a revelation which truly changes life completely, and gives a new focus and purpose to daily life. Everything in life is there to help our relationship with him, if we respond to it aright. Do you approach each new day in the joyful realisation that you can share its every moment & experience with God in Jesus? May we take on board this truth! "We ought to see the face of God every morning before we see the face of man." (D.L. Moody, Christian History, no. 25.) If we do it will change how we live our daily life.

2. Jesus is the truth. We live in a world so full of competing answers that it is easy to conclude that there is no such thing as truth, only opinions. That's the outlook of today's western post-modern culture. "What's true for you may not be true for me." Pilate's cynical words at Jesus trial, "What is truth?" remind us that this is not new. Here, however, are the words of a psychologist: "Truth is the road map for negotiating the difficult challenges of life. Without it we get lost and we develop emotional problems that tell us we're lost. We often settle for half-truths or no truth at all because they are usually easier. But truth is the only road to emotional health. There is no other path." (Chris Thurman, Preaching Today.)
Again it is not just Jesus' words, important as they are, which are the truth, but Jesus himself, who turns words into a life, which we need to absorb. If we want to understand the purpose & meaning of life and how we should live our own lives, it is to Jesus himself, as well as his teaching, that we must look. We must get to know him by reading the bible, and by sharing with him in prayer & by engaging with our fellow Christians, and then seek, with the enabling of the Holy Spirit, to live as he lived. "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." (Colossians 3:17) This means doing whatever Jesus would do in your situation. Speak the words he'd say, help others as he would, pray always as Jesus always did, have Jesus' thankful, positive outlook on life, speak of God whenever it's appropriate, and so on. Jesus is the truth, so we need to embrace that in him.

3. Jesus is the life. The apostle John wrote, "This is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." (1 John 5:11) As I tried to share last week, life in all its fulness is found only in a relationship with Jesus, both for now, and for ever. (You can read what I said on our internet site, so I won't repeat it!) You cannot control the length of your life, but you can decide its breadth, depth & height. (Anon) It is, as it were, putting our hand into the hand of Jesus and walking through life with him that makes life worth living.

"Trust in God; trust also in me." (v.1) This is the opening point of Jesus' discourse which we heard today, and the conclusion to which we must come. As we get to know Jesus, through the bible, prayer, fellowship, worship, and so on, we will find more & more reason to trust him in every area of life, including those we do not understand. Death, for example, will remain an unknown, but we will come to accept Jesus' reassurance that he has gone ahead of us to prepare us a home beyond it (v.2). The call to step into some unknown in this life (a move, sacrificial giving, new relationships, whatever), will be one we respond to with joyful trust that in it God will bring blessing. Life will become an adventure and a partnership with Jesus. "No one finds life worth living; he must make it worth living." (Anon) That is done by living it with Jesus as it's focus, the glasses through which we look at it, the example we follow, the energy within us. Trust in him in all things, and you will enter into fulness of life.