If you or I were Jesus, I believe we would be hurt by the disciples. The disciples have lived with Jesus for almost three years now. Jesus has opened his very life to them. He healed a blind man, he calmed the raging sea, he forgave the sins of the Samaritan woman at the well, and he fed the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish. The disciples, though, seem clueless as to what he is talking about. We hear their grumbling as Jesus tells them that he is going home to his Father. They appear confused about who Jesus really is.

            This is where you and I should really be glad that we are not Jesus. Instead of responding with hurt to the disciples’ grumbling, Jesus responds with reassurance. He reassures them that “there are many dwelling places in my Father’s house…I am going to prepare a place for you…I will come back again and take you there…where I am going, you know the way.”

            Why didn’t the disciples know the way? Why couldn’t they see Jesus as the way? The disciples didn’t know the way because they had not been reading their map and looking at the signs along the route. The disciples are lost in what he tells them, but Jesus acts with patience, peace and certain assurance. He tells them, once again, that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

            As we speed through life, we can feel lost. We grumble, and get upset, and lose our patience with it all. Here, it is important for us to look at the map and read the signs that are along our route. They have been placed on our path so that we will find the faith that Christ intends for us and be certain that we are moving in the right direction.

            The map and the signs that are placed along our route may be as simple as a group of women who meet two evenings a week. They light a candle, say a prayer, and then they begin their sacred work. They knit.

            These ladies are a part of ministry that has touched many lives in the parish. They knit prayer shawls, and they give them to those who suffer crises, those who are ill, or those who need reassurance. The birth of a child, a wedding, the death of a loved one, and illness -- all are times that these prayer shawls embrace and comfort those who receive them.

            One mother had a young daughter who was struggling with cancer, and the daughter wrapped herself in the shawl and told her mother that it helped to relieve her pain. Another woman refused to take her shawl off in the last days of her life because it was a blanket of love. This same woman found such comfort in the prayer shawl that she asked to be buried with it around her shoulders.

            The group of knitters believe that they receive as much from the shawls as those who receive them. These works of love act as a map; they are sign posts on the journey through life. Both the giving and the receiving possess the reassurance of God’s unconditional love.  The map, the signs, the way through the grumbling and the impatience we feel in life is to follow the way of Jesus. It is to act as he did, with charity and compassion, opening our hearts and pouring out our love with one another.