A Place for You: A Meditation on John 14

A Place for You:  A Meditation on John 14

Let not your heart be troubled: 

ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions: 

if it were not so, I would have told you. 

I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, 

I will come again, and receive you unto myself; 

that where I am, there ye may be also.

And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.  

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; 

and how can we know the way?

Jesus saith unto him, 

I am the way, the truth, and the life: 

no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

As Jesus prepared for His Passion, He also prepared His disciples for the eventuality that He would not be among them in the same way He had been previously.  Soon, Jesus would be seized by the Pharisees and Sadducees, condemned in a mock trial on trumped up charges by false witnesses, handed over to a corrupt pagan governor, beaten and scourged to the point of death, then crucified for all to see on Mount Calvary.  To ensure He was truly dead before handing His body over to be buried, a Roman guard would pierce His heart with a spear, such that blood and water poured forth-- a sure sign of cardiac death.  He would be placed in a new tomb to lay among the dead, where all the dead were expected to stay.  Then He would rise from the dead on the third day, triumphant victor over sin, death, hell, and the grave, proclaim the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to everyone who would repent and believe in Him, send out His disciples as Apostles to the ends of the earth carrying with them the Keys of His Kingdom, then ascend into heaven to sit at the right hand of His Father until He would come again in glory to judge the living and the dead at the final Resurrection on the Last Day.  Knowing all this, Jesus prepared His disciples for the new reality they were about to enter into, which would be very different than they had experienced living, conversing, eating, and drinking with Him.  

Jesus was preparing to finish His work of salvation for the whole world and return to His Father, which He knew that despite His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, His disciples would experience as a kind of departure.  To reassure them that He was not abandoning them, He promised them that He would come to bring them to where He would be in His Father's Kingdom, and that He was preparing a place for them there.  Of course, as fallen human beings, the disciples had never seen the Kingdom of God in all its glory, nor did they understand how one would arrive in the Father's Kingdom.  There were no roads, no maps, no stories handed down by the Prophets about how to rise up to where God is-- and the only two people recorded in Scripture of having suddenly made that journey (Enoch and Elijah) didn't do so by their own power, but rather were whisked up by God.  Thus Jesus had to teach His disciples that the way to the Father's Kingdom would always be Him, because Jesus would always be the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Jesus alone, as the Son of God and the son of Mary, forever uniting in Himself both the divine and human natures, is the only Eternal Word of the Father which reconciles a fallen world to holy God.  Jesus alone is the Truth and the Way which lead to eternal Life, and in Him alone is the promise of a place forever in the beautiful glory of His Kingdom.

Like the disciples, Christians in every age have needed to learn this lesson in order to finish their work in this world with joy, peace, and hope.  Each of the disciples had to cling to this promise of salvation in Jesus alone as they struck out into a dark and dangerous world, carrying with them their witness to the Gospel which had saved them-- and would save all who would repent and believe.  After Jesus' Ascension into heaven, the disciples trusted in the enduring presence of Jesus among them by His Holy Spirit working through His Word and Sacraments, creating faith and forgiving sins, and calling everyone to eternal life.  Even as the disciples worked, suffered, sacrificed, and were persecuted in their proclamation of the Gospel, they knew that their Savior not only abided with them by His Word and Spirit, but that He had already gone to prepare an eternally abiding place for them in His Father's Kingdom.  They knew by faith in the Word and Person of Jesus, that even if they had no abiding place in this fallen world, they would always have a place in His Kingdom.  Such confidence strengthened them, and generations after them, to rise above the calamities and sufferings of their times and places, to live as pilgrims on their way to eternal homes in glory, loving all they would meet along the way, and calling everyone to join them at Jesus' table.  Trusting in this Gospel promise of Jesus, His people have been able to live by grace through faith in Him alone, seeing the troubles of this present age through the lens of eternity, and knowing that despite all the unpredictable shifting sands of this world, they have a place that abides forever.

If the world has beaten you down, and left you feeling that you have no place and don't fit in, be of good cheer-- the Lord of Glory who created you, has prepared a place for you with Him.  While the world makes up its own capricious rules for who is in and who is out, who is popular and who is despised, who is powerful and who is oppressed, Jesus calls everyone to Himself by the same free gift of grace, offered by the same faith in His Eternal Word, and with the same promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who will trust and live in Him.  To you He comes with the promise of restoration and reconciliation, and for you He has prepared a place in His Father's house.  Hear His Word of life come to you this day, that you might turn from the empty paths which lead only to darkness and despair, and instead abide in the light of His grace, mercy, and love forever.  Amen.