Troubled hearts need comfort. Lives that have been engulfed by the storms of sorrow need healing and hope. John 14:1-3 is a large serving of 'just what's needed':
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
Jesus has told his disciples some very disturbing news. He is going away from them and they cannot follow him, at least not for now (13:33). He has repeatedly spoken to them of the fact he will be taken by the Jewish leaders and killed. That time is now at hand.
Yet they are not to let their hearts be troubled or afraid (verse 1 & verse 27). That's a tall order! But the reasons are laid out in verses 2 and 3, in some of the most well-known words in John’s gospel, words that have been read at countless funerals (I've done so myself often). They are words of deep and lasting hope for the future.
But they're not just for the future. They're not even primarily for the future. When Jesus speaks of going away and coming back we probably think he means going to heaven and then coming back at his second coming. But elsewhere in this chapter, he speaks of coming back and he clearly means after his resurrection (verses 18,19) or he means his coming to them by his Spirit (verse 23). It's very likely that he also has that in mind here.
Jesus is going away to prepare a place for them - and for us - in his Father's house, where there are 'many rooms'. His Father's house is his Father's household, his family (that's how the term is used in 8:35). And a 'room' is a place to rest and be refreshed, a place to remain, to dwell. Jesus is going away, through the agony of the cross, to prepare a place for us in his Father’s family, as beloved sons and daughters, a place in which there is rest and refreshing, safety and security.
That is a present reality for disciples, then and now, but wonderfully it is also a permanent reality: "a slave has no permanent place in the family (house) but a son belongs to it forever" (John 8:35). Forever belonging in the family of God in a place prepared by Jesus' going away to Calvary and coming back from the tomb.
Yes, it is true that there is more to come. We are not wrong to see these verses as having great future significance, when our adoption as God's children will be fully realised and we see him face to face. But in the here and now, the ‘now’ of many fears and anxieties, and of deep-seated insecurities, Jesus’ words offer us the solvent for our fears and the tonic for our troubled hearts: in our Father’s household are many resting places.
Your present troubles are not evidence that you are unloved and unwelcome. In the kindness of God they might even become occasions to discover the truth of his loving embrace more deeply. For in the Father’s heart we will ever remain as his cherished children.
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Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.
Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be for ever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed, we shall meet at last.
Katharina von Schlegel b. 1697;
tr. by Jane Laurie Borthwick 1813-97
