John 14:1-4 Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going. (NRSV)
“Do not let your hearts be troubled!” These are words which I would not dare--merely of myself—to speak to anyone who had just lost a dear one in death. Death is a troubling thing. The apostle Paul speaks of death as an enemy. Where death strikes, there sorrow, grief, and troubled hearts are inevitable for the loved ones who remain behind. In the face of death, who are we to say, “Do not let your heart be troubled?”
No, as mere mortals we cannot speak these words. But Jesus Christ can and does speak these words of comfort and encouragement and hope to those who have troubled hearts. He spoke them long ago to his small group of disciples when they were troubled in heart. Jesus had just told them that He was about to leave them, and would no longer be among them on earth. The imminent departure of Jesus quite understandably troubled his disciples. They had left all and had followed Him. Their entire lives had become wholly centered around Him and His presence. And now He was no longer to be among them? It seemed to them the shattering of their very lives. But to them Jesus turns and says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
With these words Jesus is not rebuking His disciples for being troubled. Rather, He is calling them out of their sorrow to a new hope and a new joy, which will overcome their grief. Because it is Jesus Christ who speaks these words, we also can find comfort and hope in them. His promises are sure; His word will not fail.
In order, therefore, that we may rest in the comfort and the hope which He holds out to troubled hearts, let us attend to His words as he makes clear where that comfort is to be found. He does this in four ways. He gives a command. He reveals a heavenly reality. He makes a promise. And He points out the way.
First of all, Jesus gives a command. He says, “You believe in God, believe also in me.” Faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ is what brings comfort and hope, also in the face of death. Where there is no belief in God, there is no sure hope in death. But when we rest in God through faith, we can cast all of our cares upon Him, knowing that “He cares for you.” (I Peter 5:7) “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” (Deuteronomy 33:27) This was the confidence which our dear one had when he was ill. “I know,” he said, “that my life is in God’s hands.” That knowledge brought strength to him, and it brings strength and comfort to us, too, who mourn his passing; we know that even now his life is still in God’s hands. We, too, believing in God, can find that comfort in life and in death are ours. “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 31:8) Believe in God, says Jesus to you, and your troubled hearts will find rest.
Then He immediately adds, “believe also in me.” Only when our faith in God is a faith directed to Jesus Christ can we experience the comfort and the hope which God offers us, for He is Emmanuel, “God with us.” He is the Word who was in the beginning with God and who is God. He is the Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us. He is the one of whom John the Baptist, cried out, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) He is the Lamb that was slain. He it is who died, who gave His life a ransom for many, for all who in humble repentance believe on Him. “No one comes to the Father,” says Christ, “except through me.” (John 14:6) The comfort that Jesus holds out to us comes as we follow His command: “You believe in God, believe also in me.”
When we put our faith in Him our hearts are open to hear what He says to us about a heavenly reality. He tells us that this earthly life is not the only life that God gives to us. He says, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places; I am going there to prepare a place for you.” We may think of our life here on earth as a life in one of the dwelling places in the Father’s house, but it is not the only one. To one of those many heavenly dwelling places our loved one has now departed. He has left one dwelling and has entered into another, a far better and more glorious place. What is it like there, where he is in heaven? We know so little about the details. But what we do know is enough to fill us with comfort and hope, for we know that there every tear is wiped away, and death is no more. We here below continue to mourn, but there there is no mourning nor crying nor pain any more.
It is not only an absence of pain and sorrow that describes that heavenly place, however. That place is the Father’s house. The Father Himself is there, and it is in the complete and full consciousness of His loving presence and His perfect goodness that one lives there. We know that the Father is here on earth, too; as the Psalmist says, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” (Psalm 139:7-10) Yes, God our Father is with us here. Even so, here His presence is not felt as it is there. Here we are often unfaithful to Him. Here we often flee from Him in order to follow our own way. Here we so easily lose sight of Him, living as we do amid the sin and darkness of a world that clouds our vision. But there, in that place that Jesus tells us He has gone to prepare a dwelling for us, a place of joy and bliss and peace, one knows fully the Father’s loving presence.
To those who believe in Him, Jesus extends a promise. He says, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.“ Jesus Christ is coming again! This is the Christian hope. It is Christ’s own promise. And when He comes, then the bodies of the dead who believed in Him will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. “For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” (I Corinthians 15:53) “It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” (I Corinthians 15:43) “He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.” (Philippians 3:21)
Belief in the resurrection from the dead is a hope which has often been ridiculed. When Paul spoke to the Greeks in Athens and proclaimed the resurrection of the dead, many who had been attentive before began to mock. And, indeed, to the human imagination it may appear preposterous—unless one believes in Jesus Christ. Apart from believing in Him there can be no real confidence in life after death. But faith in Him as the Son of God who died and arose from death gives us hope and comfort in Him, in His resurrection. He assures us that He will come again. That promise brings with it the glorious hope and certainty that we, too, and our loved ones, shall some day rise from the dead. This is the promise, the hope, which is able to turn our hearts from sorrow unto joy.
Lastly, Jesus points out the way. He says, “Let not your hearts be troubled...You know the way to the place where I am going.” We sometimes speak of death as a great mystery, as something incomprehensible and unfathomable. It is an entrance into the great unknown, the great beyond. All of this is true. And yet Jesus turns to us and says, “You know the way.” There is knowledge, there is certainty about the way to eternal life, to heaven, and to the resurrection from the dead. For if we have faith in Jesus Christ, we are on that way. “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
The apostle Paul knew that way and continuously preached about that way. He said, “Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings...that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:8-11) Paul made the traveling of that way his lifelong goal. He goes on to say, “not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” (Philippians 3:12)
That way is the knowledge of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) “I am the bread of life.” (John 6:35) “I am the true vine.” (John 15:1) “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12) “I am the resurrection and the life; those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:24-26) These are the words of our Lord as He points out the way. And everything points to Him. In the way of faith in Him there is comfort for troubled hearts. In Him troubled hearts are made glad and can rejoice in His coming. “Let not your hearts be troubled...believe in me...in my Father’s house are many dwelling places...I go to prepare a place for you.” I will come again as the one who is the resurrection and the life. “You know the way.”
Our departed loved one knew that way, so he could say, “I know that my life is in God’s hands.” Though we remain, we can, with him and with the apostle Paul, say, “I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and am sure that He is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to Him.” (II Timothy 1:12) May that same conviction give strength and comfort and hope and joy to you who mourn.
