I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Thomas once again takes one for the team! His refusal to settle for grey (as opposed to back and white) leads to one of Jesus’ memorable statements. It is a statement that tells in a summary Jesus’ mission. Jesus understands the general feeling in his camp owing to his impending departure from their midst. He reassures them that all is going to be well, that they shouldn’t let their hearts be troubled for there is nothing that might happen to them that will be of surprise. “I have prepared you. I have taught you. You should be able to handle it,” Jesus tells them, “There is only one end, only one truth. Everything else will come to naught except the truth. I have pointed out that truth to you and have shown you how to get to it.” We have come to associate this statement with death, that Jesus is telling us that all roads lead to the cross (as a gateway to the other life). However, this is just part of it. Jesus is not only interested in that other life. He is interested in our present life too. He assumed our nature and lived as one of us so that he could teach us how to live our lives here to the full. He shared in our nature so that he could remind us of who we are. Unless we come to realize who we are in the here and now, we have no future and even that ‘other’ life that follows our physical death becomes unattainable. Unless we are with Jesus here and now, we cannot possibly be with him where he is going. Jesus is the life because he shows us how to live our lives to the full; he is the truth because he comes from the Father; he is the way because he shows us how to live our lives to the full. Thomas and the others needed not to worry because they had been with Jesus and had (presumably) learnt from him. They possessed in themselves the means to the Father in whom is the fullness of life.