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 John 14:6 'Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.'

It was in primary school that we learned this. For half an hour a week the school was officially closed, and we received instructin in the Christian Religion, from, as best I can recall, a retired catholic Priest, because his name was Father Flynn. As a class we had to memorise a small tract, and stand in class and recite it, which wasn't a problem unless you were the first to volunteer to stand.

Nobody asked, "What did he mean by it?" His meaning was very clear, and at the time, although I'm fairly sure I had heard this quotation before, because the family had been going to Christmas services for as long as I could remember, and we always celebrated Christmas with the family, and had a Christmas tree and presents on Christmas day, not to mention that we also went to other Sunday services, when I heard it in school, I was struck by the boldness, and the confidence, and the certainty and authority with which he spoke. He was saying, is saying, that without exception, nobody can know God, (the Father) except through Christ.

My take on his meaning is that you must know the story of Christ, experience it through your life, practice Christianity, go to church, and read the bible, especially the New Testament, to understand what teh life of Christ was, and why he was who he claimed to be.

Somebody posted online-  John 3:3  Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.^[a]”

In church, a couple of weeks ago we were studing another bible passage, John 18, the trial of Jesus,  the story of the conversation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate. Rev Brian Hamilton read the story to us. I still love to hear the bible stories, and I laughed twice at Jesus' reply to Pilate. He was not afraid, although he knew they were trying to be clever and trap him. He must have known that the Jewish authorities had decided to turn one leader over to the Romans to be blamed for the crimes of all of them, although Jesus himself claimed to be against violence.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2018&version=NIV

Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. ²⁹ So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”

³⁰ “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”

³¹ Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”

“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. ³² This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.

³³ Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

³⁴ “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”

³⁵ “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

³⁶ Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

³⁷ “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

³⁸ “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. ³⁹ But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”

The point about it was Pilate's question “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus turned the question around, and asked Pilate- Are you saying I am a King? Although he had deliberately not answered the question, he had not denied the accusation either. He had not fallen into the yes no trap which had been set for him, in which he was bound to lose, no matter which way he answered. "Am I a Jew?" asked Pilate rhetorically,, should I know the mind of a Jew? Jesus knew that the was a Jew, he was descended from the line of David, but he also knew that while being Jewish meant being a monotheist, and also the member of an ethnic group one could only join by being born into it, he was here to start a new religion. Today we know that Jewish people have a religion as different from Christianity, as Islam, and indeed I believe that Anglicanism is as different from both of them as it it is from Catholicism.

Then the matter of law, and the matter for which he was to die. Pilate had already told him he was going to die for being the leader, or the King of the Jews. The Jewish people had chosen to live in their own land, with their own customs, and there were powerful people in Rome who were afraid of the power of the Jews, their priests, and Pilate himself, although he tried to put teh Jews down, was eventually toppled from power by his actions.

My Kingdom is not of this world, he said, if it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. He was saying that either Pilate himself was a Jewish leader, which he had already denied, so while Pilate had denied being a leader of the Jews, Jesus had not yet done so, and had accused the Jews themselves of being mere servants of the Roman authority imposed on the land. But now my Kingdom is from another place

The Jewish bible says: "Yeshua answered, “My kingship does not derive its authority from this world’s order of things. If it did, my men would have fought to keep me from being arrested by the Judeans. But my kingship does not come from here.”

What did he mean, My Kingdom is from another place? What place was he referring to? Surely he can have had no certainty of any life after his death, because although he may have had a life, a Kingdom with God before he was born, he had forgotten it when he was born, and was just doing the work he believed he had been born to do. God may have know about his plans for him in the future, but we don't know his own mind on the subject. He would have been overjoyed, after he had died, to find himself in a special place, doing God's work once again, just as you would if you died, or went to sleep, and woke to find yourself alive once more with a whole new day in front of you.