"There are so many religions in the world. Everybody believes in God his/her own way. Consequently, it can't matter what you believe: That wouldn't be fair if it did! No, it does not matter what you believe; it's if you believe that counts. As long as you believe in something. That is what counts!"

"Ah, the church; who needs it? All you get there is a lot of hassles: Money-talk, changes, all those aggravating things. Hey, I want some peace; that is what I need! Heck, who can get close to God in the middle of all that mess? I can find God a whole lot better out in the fields (or in the mountains/at the beach) on Sunday mornings. You look up there in the sky, see the rolling hills and all the trees (or the waves), the deer; yeah, it is great. Just so peaceful; you really know there is a God."

Do these two different reflections sound familiar? Have you ever felt like these two friends of ours? I know that I have. In fact, I wager that you have, too. Competent social analysts tell us that this kind of religious individualism has all sorts of adherents in contemporary American society at the close of the century.1 Almost everybody has at least some periods in their life when they think that they can find God best on their own (in nature, through interactions with other people, in the goodness of life, in your own heart.)

I do not know how it stands for certain with you, but this is an awfully familiar road to me. I can tell you that I went through a period in my life - in my later teens and early 20s - when I just figured that all the religions of the world were equal. As long as you believed in something, that is all that counts. I thought that I could find God on my own, and as for the church - who needs it?

Perhaps some of you have never felt quite as strongly as I did. Perhaps you never reached the point where you thought that Christianity was just another religion. Just the same, however, have you ever wondered whether the church is really worth all the effort? Have you ever wondered whether we really need the Bible? Have you ever felt that you could find God on your own?

Be honest, now: Recall, we know each other pretty well. Of course, there have been times when you felt like you could find God on your own - without Jesus, without the Bible, without the church. Of course you have experienced times when you felt like you could just as well pray to God on your own - find him in nature or somewhere else.

Yes, we have those feelings on our own sometimes. This morning's gospel lesson really has something to say about such feelings You remember the situation. This week's gospel lesson is taken from Jesus' farewell discourse.

It was the night of the last supper, and Jesus' disciples knew that something was up; they knew that Jesus was going to be betrayed by someone (John 13:21) and that he had plans to leave them (John 13:33; 14:3). They may not yet have grasped that he was preparing to die, but they were anxious (John 13:22, 36; 14:1). They did not know what to think. How could God possibly take Jesus away from them? It did not make any sense. How could God, our Heavenly Father, allow this to happen? How could he seem so cruel?

Jesus, the ever-caring man that he is, tried to calm his friends' anxiety (John 14:1). Think of it. The man is anxious about his own death (John 13:21), and yet he comforts others. What a loving, caring God we have! How can you not love someone like that?

Jesus assumed that his disciples knew where he was going (into heaven to prepare for them and his other followers [John 14:2-4]). But Thomas, ever the disciple full of questions, spoke for all of his friends when he asked Jesus where he was going and the way to get there (John 14:5). Then Jesus answered them: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me (John 14:6)."

The disciples never could get it straight. Jesus has laid out everything we need, and we still do not get things straight. "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied (John 14:8)," Philip said. It is rather like the questions we ask: "We want to know what God is really like, Jesus. We want to know why there is so much suffering, why you have to die, why do we?" And Jesus looked at them sadly and said: "He who has seen me has seen the Father ... (John 14:9)." "The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me (John 14:10-11)." And Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father ... (John 14:9)."

My friends, right here we have perhaps the deepest insight of the Christian faith. If we want to know who God is, if we want to know what he is really like, we already have our answer. The only answer is "Jesus Christ." Jesus shows who God is. For Jesus is God.

This is the core Christian commitment: Jesus is God. Whatever he says, whatever he does, it is God doing it. What is God like? He is the kind of a God who loved you and me so much, loved us so much, that he died for us. What is God like? He must really love us, for Jesus certainly did. Whoever has seen Jesus hanging on the cross has seen the Father, knows that God is so full of love that he would even die for us. We need to look for Jesus, to the Bible, to find out who God really is.

I hope that you caught the thrust of these questions and answers, because, if you did, now you know why one religion is not like any other. No, it does matter what you believe. Some of the other religions of the world may believe in God, but, because they do not know Jesus, they really do not know who God is. They do not know his great love.

It is no accident, you know, that in all of the religions of the world that I have studied, none of them speaks of God or the ultimate with quite the same stress on his love that Christianity does. Other religions, then, do not know who God is or what life is all about. They are trying. But they really do not know God's love. No other religion in the world talks about God's love as much as Christianity does. It really matters what you believe; if you do not believe in Jesus, you do not truly know God.

Oh, but there are other consequences to this Christian centeredness on Jesus. If you only truly know who God is because of Jesus, then you cannot find God just anywhere (without Jesus). You need Jesus, the Bible and the church.

Do not get me wrong. I am not rejecting the idea that God is in nature or out in the woods on Sunday morning. He is there. It is just that if that is the only place that you look for him, you do not know God aright.

Of course, the woods are beautiful on a nice spring day; God really seems good and loving. Yet what about when a forest fire hits? If that were all you had to go on, would God seem quite as loving? No, not very loving at all. How loving does God seem in the aftermath of a destructive earthquake or, to the farmer, in the midst of a wrenching drought? If that were all you had to go on, would you think that God is very loving then? No, we really only know who God is, when we come to Jesus and find him in his church.

Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that you cannot find God merely by praying to him in solitude. The only problem is that sometimes it just does not seem that God answers our prayers. Sometimes we do not seem to get what we asked. If that were all you had to go on, if that were all we knew about God (just by praying to him), then sometimes he would not seem very loving. Yes, we really only truly know who God is when our prayer life has been strengthened by looking to Jesus and his church.

Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that you cannot find God in life itself. How often we feel that life is really sweet, really good, and that God must be there in the middle of it. But sometimes life is not so sweet.

How about you? How about you when you have been knocked down by life? If the only thing that you knew about God was how life treated you, if that were all, then God would not seem too good. It really matters what you believe, or should I say in whom you believe. It matters. It is not enough merely to say that you believe in God, because you might not really know who God is at all if you are not careful.

Think about it: Is this not precisely what the Christian faith is proclaiming? We do not call ourselves "Godians" - people who merely believe in God. We are not "Godians." No, we are called by another name. We have been called Christians - "Christ-ians." That is, the world proclaims that we are people who only know who God is, because of Christ (Acts 11:26). From Jesus, the Jesus whom we meet in the Bible and in the church, we have the only way that we can truly know who God is. On our own we cannot know who God is; we need Jesus to make God known.

Martin Luther, as usual, made the same point so well in one of his sermons on the very gospel text that we are considering. Here is what he said: "This is the knowledge in which St. John, an outstanding evangelist with regard to this theme, and St. Paul instruct more than the others do. They join and bind Christ and the Father so firmly together that we learn to think of God only as Christ. As soon as we hear the mention of God's name, or of his will, his works, his grace, or his displeasure, we must not judge these as the voice of our heart or man's wisdom discourse on them ... but we must nestle and cuddle on the lap of Christ, like dear children on their mother's lap or in her arms, and close our eyes and ears to everything but him and his words."2

Just cuddle up on Christ's lap. Don't get Luther and me wrong at this point. We are not saying that you cannot find God in nature, or in your prayers, or in life. We are not making that claim. We are merely saying that if this is all the data that you have, you cannot quite be sure that there is a loving God. For there are things in life that do not seem so beautiful.

Jesus is rather like a pair of glasses, a pair of glasses that we need to wear. Without them, you do not quite see things correctly. Yet once you are wearing them, then you can truly see God in all the realms of life. Then you can really see him in all his, love. However, if you do not wear them, if you do not put them on much, like people who think that they do not need Jesus or his church, but can find God somewhere else, then you are not really wearing your glasses. In that case, you are not really seeing God; you don't really know him.

If you just look at nature or the way life is going, you cannot be quite sure. There are just too many "maybes." That is why we need Jesus and his church to make us sure that God loves us. Right here, my friends, in our worship, in the proclaimed word, in the bread, wine, and water of the sacraments, you meet a God who loves you so much that he died for you. That is the way God really is: Jesus shows us. Go and cuddle up on his lap, and close your eyes and ears to everything else. We have a God who is so loving that you can cuddle up to him, so loving that he died for you. With Jesus for your glasses, showing you the way, you cannot miss that loving God! Along with the psalmist, that kind of love makes you want to praise the Lord, sing a new song (Psalm 33:2-3), for "the earth is full" of his steadfast love (Psalms 33:5).