What comes to mind when you think of the word “home”?
I think of the house where my parents have lived for 40 years, the home I most remember. I loved growing up there, and I still love visiting. After Michelle and I were married, we lived in 5 different homes in our first four years before we moved to a rented home in Kingston, Jamaica, during our year living there as missionaries. When we returned home, a bit shell-shocked because we thought we were going to live in Kingston for a long time, we lived at two more houses in the next 18 months. After all that moving, I remember finally having a feeling of stability when we bought our first home in the city of Lancaster, a feeling that solidified during the 8 years living there. It felt like home. Since 2011 we’ve lived in our current house, and I don’t know if we’ll ever move again. There is a longing deep within all of us for that kind of stability, a place we call home.
We’re continuing our study the life of Jesus as told in the Gospel of John. In John chapter 14, Jesus and his disciples are still in the Upper Room where they have been celebrating the Jewish Passover festival. If your Bible has Jesus’ words in red font, you’ll notice that John chapter 14, like 15, 16 and 17, have a lot of red. In that Upper Room, Jesus is doing a lot of talking.
We’re going to work our way through this important teaching during the months of June and July. It will be one important teaching right after the other. Why? Because Jesus knows he is literally hours away from being arrested, and this is his last chance to prepare his disciples before his arrest. In chapter 13, Jesus has just told his disciples that one of them, Judas Iscariot, will betray him and that another, Simon Peter, will disown him. So the mood is dreary. What will he say after dropping those bombs?
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
Easier said than done, Jesus. Even if we say and believe we trust Jesus in the middle of our distress and anxiety, in the middle of our troubled hearts, our bodies don’t always agree. Maybe you know what I mean. It can be difficult to settle down physically and emotionally when you’re angry. When you’re scared. When you’re confused. When a relationship is in danger or broken. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled” can sound like an impossible dream.
Of course I want to feel peace and calm, but my body doesn’t seem to be in agreement. For me it usually happens after an intense situation. Adrenaline carries me through the situation, and then when it’s over and I should be feeling peace, guess what happens? My anxiety kicks in…after the difficulty! I can be doing dishes at home, shaking. Does it mean I don’t trust in Jesus? No. Does it mean my faith is gone? No. It means I have anxiety. It’s my body responding to whatever intense situation I just faced.
So when Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” I’m thinking, “I don’t have a choice, Jesus. My body just reacts. It’s like breathing. I’m not telling my body to take a breath, then another, then another. It just does it. Same with anxiety.”
But I wonder if the disciples experienced something different because he was right there in the room? Was his presence so overwhelming, so powerful that whenever he was around, they were at peace? I doubt it. In the gospel accounts we read they were often frightened, and a few hours after the Upper Room discussion, they will flee from Jesus’ presence, scared out of their minds.
Jesus knows all of this, of course, so he goes on to say more than just “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Look at verses 1b-3.
“Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. 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 not only tells them to not let their hearts be troubled. He not only says, “Trust in God, trust also in me,” he gives them a reason why. He evokes the image of a house, his Father’s house which has many rooms.
Jesus fills the disciples’ minds with a stable home, his father’s home, with many rooms. Jesus says he will go prepare a place there for his disciples. Jesus’ image of home is one of refuge, of safety.
Perhaps, that kind of safe, loving home sounds familiar to you. Perhaps not. In the next post we’ll talk about what it means to be at home with God.
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 