Dear Friends,
We hope this will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Peter Hermann for writing this devotional.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
John 14:1-14
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
Devotional
Beyond troubled hearts and fridge magnets….
According to surveys, the first verse of this passage is the 33rd most quoted Bible verse. Even the first half, often reduced to the singular “Let not your heart(s) be troubled”, is ubiquitous. It features prominently on what Christian booksellers call ‘holy hardware’, such as coffee mugs, posters, bookmarks, and fridge magnets. This is not a misapplication of the passage, but it is a very thin slice that robs this important passage of meaning and much greater relevance to us.
Three prominent themes in John’s Gospel are ‘love, light and life’. The Bible tells us that these are attributes of God and, by extension, Christ. We expect a God like this to create a world full of love, light and life, which it originally was. But because of sin, the world was plunged into hatred, darkness and death.
It was into this world of hatred, darkness and death that the ‘Word made flesh’, who was full of love, light and life, came. Despite the electric atmosphere in Jerusalem at this time, what had started for the disciples as a normal Passover meal (bickering included) went from celebration, to consternation, to crisis, in ‘sixty seconds’, as they say.
John tells us two things at the start (13:1ff) that were front of mind for Jesus. The first was that ‘Jesus was going back to the Father’ (13:1,3). The second, that He was going to be betrayed by one of them (13:2), something He said frequently (13:18, 21-30; 15:6). This is in addition to denial by another (13:38) and wholesale defection by the rest (16:32).
These darkest human fears begin to overshadow the meal. Friends denying and betraying, and worst of all, the fear of abandonment, which caused them to unravel. Anyone who has been at the car park when children are arriving for their first day of school has witnessed the terrifying prospect of abandonment. The school scene can be heartrending and comedic. This one is simply heartrending. It is the disciples’ terrifying realisation that Jesus is going away that is the immediate backdrop for Chapter 14. While Jesus tells them not to be anxious or fearful, He is not telling them to simply ignore their feelings. Instead, He gives them powerful truths that will replace the fear with hope and joy.
Flashback: the first miracle performed by Jesus took place at a wedding in the obscure village of Cana in Galilee. The essential parts of a wedding in the ancient world included the betrothing of the bride and groom. This was more than an engagement because it could only be revoked by a certificate of divorce. After this took place, the groom would go back to his father’s house to build additional rooms for himself and his bride. Only then, at an unspecified time decided only by his father, would he go to his bride’s father’s house and bring her back to his father’s house for the wedding celebration and consummation. While not obvious to our modern Western eyes, Jesus’ description would have resonated immediately with the disciples. They began to understand that the Divine Family was being extended to include them in a very real way.
This was the antidote to fear that Jesus gave to them and to us. He proclaims that He alone is ‘the Way and the Truth and the Life’. He is the way back to the Father and also ‘love, light and life’. This is future focused, but like a Galilean wedding, the reality of the betrothal has already occurred. This is the work of the Holy Spirit Whom Jesus says brings the foretaste of His and the Father’s love, light and life to us. It is our solemn obligation as members of the Heavenly Family to share this love, light and life wherever we go.
Prayer
We thank you, Father, that there are many places of fellowship in your house, and that your Son has prepared a place for us and for all those whom you have loved from before the foundation of the world.
Just as importantly, we thank you for the foretaste of this through the fellowship we already have with you and each other through your Son and the Holy Spirit. Thank you that it has always been the kind intention of your will to bring people into the innermost and intimate fellowship of the One who is Love, Light and Life.
But as we think of this, we also know that this fellowship has been bought with the greatest price, the death of your Son on the cross, bearing our punishment. We humbly thank you that He has carried the full weight and force of our sin, and its consequence of separation from you.
Thank you, too, for His powerful and victorious resurrection and ascension to your right hand, where He forever lives with you and the Holy Spirit, and, along with the Holy Spirit, continually intercedes on our behalf until we join Him there.
But we know this has come about through those who not only believed His word but entrusted it to faithful people who were able to teach others. Help us to fulfil the Great Commission and not cease to tell others of the love, light and life that is in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Through that, may they enter the fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and proclaim “Holy, Holy, Holy” together with the whole company of Heaven. This we ask in the name of your Son who lived, died and now lives forever and ever. Amen.