John 13:33, “Little children, I am with you a little while longer… you will look for me… where I am going you cannot come.” That phrase “a little while longer” really jumped out at me. Do you remember how when you were a child your parents would tell you to wait a “little while longer?” Didn’t it used to be true, just one hour, let alone a day, could feel like eternity! To a young person, in terms of perception, a month or year represents a greater fraction of their life.
But then as you get older, years feel like months; months like days; days like hours. Time represents an ever smaller fraction of life. Now imagine if you are God, and you’ve existed from all eternity. A day is like a thousand years and a thousand years a day! And the whole span of a person’s life? It’s but a mist, vapor, a flash, a snap, a nanosecond! Psalm 90:10 says, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.”
Something else that is true as you grow older—you begin to hold unto the people you love a little tighter. If you are younger you think, “I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to hold unto to someone...” If you are older you think, “I don’t know much longer my family will be able to hold unto me!” I remember a few years before my dad passed away, we were in a back room, and Dad tried to tell me he didn’t think he had much time. At the time I dismissed his concern. I said something like, “Nah, you’re good, you don’t need to be thinking like that.” Another time he tried to push some of his tools toward me and I said, “Nah, I’m good, you’re going to be using those yourself.”
How long is a “A little while longer?” For all practical purposes it’s NOW. We are never really ready to “let go of” or “be let go of.” How do you prepare yourself, or those you love, for death? We hate even the thought of it, much less the mention of it. Could we talk about something else?
At the end of John 13:36-37, Peter asks Jesus, “Lord... where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later.” “Lord,” Peter asked, “why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Peter so badly wanted to hold unto Jesus. As we slip into John 14:1, the whole band of disciples are “troubled” by Jesus’ ominous words. Jesus tells them, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”
Has anyone here ever been “troubled” by death? You might be surprised to know, on numerous occasions Jesus himself felt “troubled.”
When Jesus came to the tomb of his friend Lazarus, in John 11:33, we read how, “When Jesus saw {Mary} crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.” Another word for moved is “angry.” We’re also told in John 11 that “Jesus wept.”
In John 12:27, as He reflected on the cross, Jesus says, “Now my soul is troubled. What should I say—Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour.” As Jesus spoke of the imminent betrayal of Judas, in John 13:21 “. . .he was troubled in his spirit.”
So, Jesus is not indifferent. He isn’t somehow insulated from the pain of death. If anything, God is infinitely more attune to death, and profoundly more affected than even the most troubled among us. In the presence of death, God is the first among grievers.
There is someone our troubled souls can cling to in the face of death who will never let go of us, who will never let us be snatched from their hand, and it’s God. Jesus says, John 14:1, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me!” This is the exact same thing Jesus told the disciples when he learned of Lazarus’ death. In John 11:15 he said, “I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.” This was Jesus’ same admonition to Lazarus’ sisters. In John 11:25-26 he says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
In John 14 there are three anchors for faith that ought comfort the disciples:
First, Jesus is Making Room for Us
John 14:1-3, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”
Whenever I hear “Father’s house” my mind jumps right to heaven—to “the mansion in the sky far away.” The disciple’s minds would have jumped to the Temple. The only other time Jesus uses this phrase, he was referring to the Temple. Remember? “My Father’s house” is to be a house of prayer for all nations?” The temple was a symbol of heaven on earth but how?
First, God’s presence filled the temple. Second, in the temple there were many rooms. Third, in order to enter the inner rooms of the temple, you had to be ceremonially clean, washed, and ordained. Jesus had just washed the disciple’s feet in the upper room. He had just told Peter unless I wash for you, you will have no part in me. And he had just told them that one of them was still clean—Judas.
Psalm 84:1-4 is a Psalm about the Temple. The Temple is a typology of heaven on earth. “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord of Armies. 2 I long and yearn for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh cry out for the living God. 3 Even a sparrow finds a home, and a swallow, a nest for herself where she places her young— near your altars, Lord of Armies, my King and my God. 4 How happy are those who reside in your house, who praise you continually.” Jesus is telling the disciples that he is going to “prepare a place” for them in the Father’s House. The Psalm 84 sparrow, perched in its nest, sheltered by God’s Temple, would no longer be their envy, but their future hope!
If the disciple’s minds didn’t jump to the temple, they would have next jumped to the Feast of Tabernacles. Long before the Temple, in Leviticus, God gave elaborate instructions on how to build a Tabernacle, a “Tent,” for his dwelling. God would travel with his people, his presence going before them as a pillar of fire by night, and cloud by day. Whenever the Levites would setup the Tabernacle, the Twelve Tribes of Israel would camp, by tribe, in little tents or booths or places surrounding the Tabernacle on every side! That imagery… of God tabernacling in the midst of his people… and God’s people tabernacling in booths with their God… is the picture of heaven Jesus is painting.
I am going to the Father to make places or booths or shelters or rooms for you in God’s presence forever! And if I go, I’m going to come and take you to myself, so that you may be where I am also. If God shelters the sparrow how much more will he shelter us and make room for us. In every good house there is also a table—and so John 13—is a kind of backdrop too. That Jesus has cleaned us and prepared a place for us at the table. And so, when we partake of the Lord’s Table were anticipating a heavenly feast, eating meal in God’s presence.
We are obviously reading John 14 in English. But in the Greek, the Greek word for “place” is transliterated “mone.” Interesting enough, the Greek verb for remaining or abiding or resting” is transliterated “meno.” Jesus is creating an eternal “mone” (dwelling place) for us to “meno” (dwell) in God’s presence forever! Psalm 23:6, “Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord [*forever].”
Second, Jesus is Making a Way for Us
John 14:4-6, Jesus says, “You know the way to where I am going.” 5 “Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Elsewhere Jesus declared, “I am the gate” and “I am the door.” Here he declares “I am the way.” It’s not like we can plug “the Father” into google drive and navigate our own way to heaven. And even if we could, would we be authorized, permitted, ordained to enter God’s presence? Just because you make your way to the Temple in Jerusalem, didn’t mean you’d be allowed entrance, much less a dwelling place, a room, a booth in which to rest or remain.
Jesus can get us through the door. Through Jesus we can gain access to the Father. Jesus’ word of comfort to Mary and Martha was John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
A way has been opened up in Jesus to pass through death into everlasting life. And the proof of passage is Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to the Father. John 16:28, “I came from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” Jesus’ words of comfort to Mary Magdalene, John 20:17, “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus told her, “since I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
Through the years I have had to “let go” of some very dear friends. I find the strength to let go knowing Jesus has made a way through death unto life. And I trust that to be true because when they destroyed the temple of Jesus body, he raised it up three days later. Jesus is proof positive of our hope of not just heavenly dwelling, but heavenly access. He is our way-maker.
Third, Jesus is Showing Us the Father
Jesus tells Philip, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” What does Jesus mean that he is the truth? How does Jesus being truth comfort us? How is that a point of faith? The answer is in John 14:7-11, “7 If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 “Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who lives in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves.”
Remember John 1:1-18 prologue? “No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.”
The truth of my very life. My words. My works. The way God’s been glorified in my life. You have all the truth you need to confidently believe, to have hope, to find comfort in the face of death for your troubled souls.
Last, Jesus is Giving Us His Spirit
Little teaser for next week. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:15-17 Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.” There is that word “meno” again. Jesus says, you’re going to feel God’s comfort because God’s Holy Spirit… my Great Comforter… will dwell in you, and remain within you!
Hear this invitation of Jesus this morning… Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.