We have lived through a week of cascading emotions. There were many who were delighted for London when they were awarded the 2012 Olympics; there was scarcely anyone not shocked and deeply saddened by the terrible evil of the attack on London the next day. This has been a week, then, when hearts have been very deeply troubled – troubled by the loss of loved ones, troubled by the appalling sights of suffering on the streets of a vibrant city.
Troubled hearts need comfort. Lives that have been engulfed by the storms of sorrow need healing and hope. The passage we come to this morning in our series on these chapters offers just that hope.
Jesus has just told his disciples some very disturbing news. He is going away from them and they cannot follow him, at least not for now. He has repeatedly spoken to them of the fact he will be taken by the Jewish leaders and killed; and that time is at hand.
However dark the scene, Jesus also knows this is the time when he will glorify the Father and the Father will glorify him. Yet the disciples find all this so hard to grasp and, as a consequence, their hearts are troubled. We can see why that would be so – their beloved friend and master is going away from them and, however much warning they may have had, it will be a shocking event when it happens.
The phrase that is used in 14:1 is also used in 12:27 to describe Jesus’ response to the coming hour; the same term is also used in 11:33 and 13:21 to describe Jesus’ emotions at the death of Lazarus and at the betrayal of Judas.
Those uses help us to see what is going on here. The disciples are not just sad to be losing a good friend; their deep grief is much more closely aligned with the spiritual struggle that Jesus is involved in – the struggle that claimed Lazarus and that swallowed Judas; the struggle between light and darkness, life and death.
And all the hopes of the disciples had been pinned on Jesus – surely he would be the one to deliver Israel from evil, to rescue and restore.
God had promised just such a deliverer and he was eminently suited to the task. Yet he speaks of going on without them. No wonder their hearts are troubled – they are suddenly caught in the most violent storm just when they had expected to reach harbour.
Jesus knows their hearts, just as he knows ours. How does he handle the rawness of their sorrows?
1. Trust in God
He begins by starting at the point where his disciples are. They are grieved and troubled – and Jesus addresses them as such. But his exhortation in 14:1 is designed to call them forward from where they are. It is good to sympathise with others and there are times we might feel we can do no other. But where it is possible, we need to offer the hope of moving forward and Jesus does that here: he urges his disciples, “Do not to let your hearts be troubled”.
Clearly there is, in what Jesus says, a responsibility that lies with the disciples – they must be willing to hear what he says and respond to it. We need to notice that but we also need to understand it won’t always be the case – a person may be so much in shock it is impossible for them to hear, let alone respond to, exhortations that are wise and helpful. There is a time and a place for addressing the responsibilities of those we are seeking to help.
Jesus of course knows the hearts of his disciples and so he addresses them as he does here. But it would be wrong to take the first half of this verse and conclude that he was simply telling them not to allow themselves to be so troubled, to in effect ‘pull their socks up’. His words must be taken as a whole.
And taking them as a whole what Jesus says is that they are to combat and respond to their troubled hearts by trusting in God. The way back from a broken heart, from a heart deeply troubled, is not to find some inner strength you never knew you had but, rather, to lean all your weight on the God who made you. “Trust in God.”
We ought to note at this point that there are many ways of translating v.1 – ‘trust’ might be a command or it might be descriptive.
Of the various combinations, the most likely in the context is that Jesus is urging his fearful and troubled disciples to trust, to believe in God, to take what they know of this God and live it out.
2. Trust also in me
But that really is only part of the picture and we need to see the whole, because only then will we be in a position to truly deal with our fears and alarms.
Jesus combines the exhortation to trust in God with a twin call: “Trust also in me”. He has no hesitation in calling the disciples to a like faith in him as they are to have in the Father. And the reason he doesn’t hesitate is clear: if we have seen him, we have seen the Father. The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world and all who put their trust in the Son honour the Father and discover the blessed reality of rescue from sin and death.
These words encourage us to hold the highest view of the person and work of Jesus. The reality to which they point is the only way sin can be overcome and troubled hearts truly set at ease and at rest.
The answer to the evil of the world, the evil that is in us and that is destroying society and marring creation, lies only in Jesus. It does not lie in a vague belief in a deity who is nameless and faceless. Genuine hope, hope that can settle the most troubled heart, lies in the God who is revealed to us in Jesus his Son.
Jesus is not wasting his words here. They must believe in God and they must believe in him as the one who reveals the Father and who effects the saving plans of the Father. Nothing less will do to lighten the darkness and calm the troubled hearts that had been thrown into turmoil by the ravages of sin and evil.
And our troubles, as we see our own disordered hearts or as we see the world in its sinister and sorrowful mess, can only be quieted through faith – faith in God and faith in Jesus who reveals the Father and accomplishes his purposes of grace. And if we need to hear that call afresh today, how much does our world need to hear it at this time!
3. Plenty of room
Jesus immediately bolsters what he is saying by speaking of his going away and what it will accomplish for his disciples. His words in vv.2,3 are some of the most well-known in John’s gospel and have been read at countless funerals and so on. If there are any words we know the meaning of, surely it is these.
I think that’s true, but I don’t think it’s necessarily as true as it could be. I don’t want to upset any apple carts but I think there is more going on here than meets the traditional eye. We need to get slightly technical to see that but I hope you’ll stick with me on this one.
Jesus speaks here of going away and coming back, references that we immediately assume to refer to his going to heaven and his second coming. But elsewhere in this chapter, he speaks of coming back and means after his resurrection (vv.18,19) or coming by his Spirit (v.23). So what does he mean here in vv.2,3?
We need to look at the phrase, “My Father’s house”. We’re used to understanding it as speaking of heaven but ‘house’ has a broader meaning. It is also used in 8:35 where it is translated as “family” or ‘household’. That is a good translation in the context. Could it possibly be that 14:2 is also referring not so much to the place where God lives but to the family he is remaking?
This is where we need to bring in the second phrase, the “many rooms” Jesus speaks of. The phrase simply means ‘dwelling places’, a place to rest and be refreshed; but, more importantly, it is a place to stay for ever. It has the idea of permanence with it. Now, go back to 8:35 and you’ll see the same word-group being used there – the slave doesn’t have a permanent place but the son does.
Putting those two points together, I think the link with 8:35 is a very strong one and helps us to see what is going on here. Jesus is going away to prepare a place for his disciples in the Father’s household – and it will be a permanent place. He is going away to make them sons of the living God. His death on the cross will achieve that.
But I think it is also right to see Jesus as looking forward here to his return in glory – when he speaks of coming back and taking them to be with him, it is difficult not to see that as referring in some way to his second coming.
And it is when Jesus returns in glory, that our adoption into God’s family will be complete – what Paul refers to in Rom 8:23 when he speaks of “our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies”.
So I’m not denying the traditional interpretation that Jesus is speaking of heaven but I am saying that there is another aspect to his words that is latent here and we need both of them if we’re we derive the comfort he intends to give us.
Through the going away of Jesus, into the shame and pain of the cross, we have been reconciled to God and have been made his children. In this world that is ravaged by sin, in the disordered and tension-filled lives we live in this world, we need the comfort of knowing that we are genuinely in the family of God, that Jesus has indeed conquered sin and evil, whatever might seem to be the case.
But we are not yet in possession of the fullness of what Jesus has achieved for us; one day he will return to take us to be with him where he is. As John later writes in his first letter, “Now we are the children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known”. But we know it is coming, in all its glory and wonder.
Sin will not have the last word; Jesus will. Already he has rescued us from its grip and given us a permanent place in the family of God; and one day he will return for us. Here is the message that this world needs to hear – not that sin will one day be defeated but that it has been and now is the time to come securely into the family of God.
There is a secure dwelling place for all in the household of God if they will put their trust in God and trust in Jesus. And if our trust is in him, we need to address our troubled hearts and apply the comfort of these exquisite verses – not only for our sakes but so that our mission to the world would not be hindered.
