This text is a rich text; a familiar text. Often, we encounter this John 14 as we gather to celebrate the life of a saint who has entered the Church Triumphant taking comfort in the words of our Savior much like the disciples took comfort that night.
Generally, John 14 is part of Jesus’ final discourses, and his words were meant to reassure and teach his followers as they wonder about their future. In the previous chapter Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times. In the previous chapter, Jesus washes the disciple’s feet as an act of service—a very confusing set of events I could imagine for them to hear and to witness.
So, while John 14 seems very direct or straightforward at first glance, as with much of God’s Word, if we are willing to plumb its depth and sit with it, we learn God values our relationship with Jesus and we learn how we can grow that relationship.
For even on a night as tough on Jesus as this was, our Savior is doing something powerful for us. I wonder what our response to that work might be and how on Homecoming Sunday, we can take that work and share it others in our larger community?
Move 1- home
John 14 begins with the familiar words that Jesus is returning to His Father’s house. Obviously, at the Last Supper Jesus is not saying that He is preparing to return to a physical space, like any of our physical homes. As Acts tells us, we know that God does not dwell in homes of wood or stone—places made by human hands.
Instead, Jesus, on his final earthly night prior to His betrayal, prepares to go. . . home. Jesus prepares to go to the place where Our Heavenly Father dwells. The concept of Jesus going home is not a small detail in John 14 and together on Homecoming Sunday we need to hold onto this and be prepared and willing to share it with others.
From as far back in the story of humanity as Noah household being saved from the Great Flood, the same word has been used for home signifying that God is ever-present and offering the eternal fellowship that is best labelled by us as home. Today Jesus wants to remind us about the value and importance of remembering our home that he prepares… but perhaps in a different meaning than what we could be familiar with when we read John 14.
Now I know that not everyone here in this worship place, or those watching in their homes, will say that Home is always safe, blessed, and/or welcoming. And that is true. While we know stories, and people, who will say that their home, or the home down the street of a friend or family member, was far from a safe, or idyllic location, where love and fellowship was offered, in Christ, here in John 14 as Jesus is before His followers having just washed their feet, in this home that God offers, and Jesus teaches, home is something far more wonderful.
This concept of Home is also sharable. For Home in Christ is the place that as we press in to be with Jesus and feel the love and presence of the Lord washing over us. This is where I hear the words of 1 Peter focus into my heart and comfort me. In 1 Peter we read that in Christ we have a firm foundation; something strong like stone (as Peter tells us). This home is a thing that cannot be shaken or broken by the things of this world that seem to shake so much and are not worth our attention or passions.
As the disciples in John 14 are struggling with the tension of Jesus preparing to leave them, and telling them will deny him and they worry about their future, they must remember that He goes home to do vital work on their behalf that will provide for them in their future—here in this place first and then in heaven later.
For you see, when any tragedy comes, or the whisper of suffering is heard (and that happens so often), and it does not matter how intense the tragedy is to the person or persons, what we want most clearly is the safety and the stability of going home. This is why churches will fill around national times of mourning and tragedy. People come home; they go home. For so many people identify church as their Home—even if they do not always know that they are doing this.
Home is the safe place that Jesus prepares for us… again both here and with God later. On Homecoming, this is the important to remember as we think about gathering together. But there is more in this famous passage.
Move 2- rooms
In that home, that place of safety, Jesus preparing something for us that is sacred and special—not general or casual.
The word that Jesus uses here is: rooms (in verse 2). Jesus is the only person in the New Testament to use that word, and He only uses it twice, and it is only in this chapter. The concentration of the word should help to focus our attention on this moment and on what Jesus is preparing for us. So whatever Jesus is doing for these disciples, and everyone who finds John 14 later as they need to think about Home, we need to hold onto the value of it.
And this place that Jesus prepares, these rooms, they are anchored in a personal relationship with the One who is preparing them in God’s home for us.
Rather than just offering lip service to what God is doing, or to what Jesus is saying in John 14, these ideas of home and the preparation that Jesus is making for us, invite us to press in, go deeper into our relationship with Jesus. The spaces that Jesus prepares for us should cause each of you to wonder: what exactly is Jesus preparing for me? What might that ‘room’ look like?
And before you make that jump with me and think I am about to define the physical criteria of heaven, let me just say now… I am not. While heaven is described in other places in the New Testament, Jesus does not take the time to do so because I do not think that is the only thing he is speaking about.
this is where we move deeper into the Good News on Homecoming. Perhaps the good news, maybe the ‘better news’ that we are finding here in John 14, relates to the space where Jesus dwells with us each day. And where does God dwell with you?
Perhaps Jesus is also stating that the room that he prepares is in each of the disciples, past, present, and future, who find their way to the Lord and accept him. When we do accept him what does Jesus say? He says that he will make his Home with them/with us.
For this space, this home, and this relationship, these rooms are all holy because Jesus himself is present in that place doing the work and calling each of us to come together and bring others as well.
On the last night of Jesus’ earthly life, the Savior sits with his closest friends and reminds them that although he is going away from them physically, he will always dwell with them—an assertion that you know in your heart to be true because when pain and suffering has come into your life, and in the life of this church, have you not felt the Lord draw himself up close to you?
Perhaps he was preparing that space all the time for this exact moment? Perhaps that is what it means to have Jesus at home in your life? Perhaps that is a deeper part of the miracle of John 14 for each of us, that union with Christ is possible in ways that we do not always realize for Jesus is preparing something special for each of us and in us.
Will we do the work of sharing that with others after we come home to the Lord?
Move 3- deeper
Tersea of Avila when thinking about this text compared that relationship with Jesus, the home we have in Christ, to a great castle that is right before each of us. But rather than walk right up to it, rather than explore its depths and wondering about the construction of the entire structure she says that we would prefer to wander around the outer courtyards and gardens. Would we be satisfied with just a small piece when God offers us so much more? Tersea professes that most in the church would affirm that they do not press in. Should be join her in the posture?
Jesus has prepared great things for you and for me in this work that he does on the cross and on daily on the pages of God’s Word. Yet many of us choose to spend so much time on the margins of that relationship not living into the fullness of what is possible and offered.
We are offered a great home, a wonderfully prepared home that God dwells in, rooms that God asks us to take the time to nurture and grow. Should we not press in through acts like prayer and the meditation upon God’s Word to learn how wonderful the home that is made ready for us is?
Should we not look around and wonder about how much Jesus has done for each of us?
Conclusion
This text is more than just what we often read as we remember the life of those cherished to us. It is an invitation to faithfully come home to the Lord. I wonder today if you will join me in coming home to Christ and choose to deepen you faith through acts of worship, prayer, scripture reading, and let the Lord Jesus work on those rooms that he prepares for you?
DM
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