This is an article I wrote for the Messenger Inquirer on February 1 of this year. I felt its content was appropriate for the season, so I’ve shared it here. If you want to hear more about this, the content comes largely from a sermon I preached on January 26, 2020. You can listen to it here. Just scroll down and click on the one that says “John 14:1-4.”

John 14:1-4 contains some of the most comforting words in all of Scripture. The night before he is crucified, Jesus speaks to his closest followers and says, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also. 4 You know the way to where I am going.” (CSB)

Jesus is leaving to prepare a place for them. Farewell discourses often end with the expectation of the two parties never seeing each other again. Not this one. It begins with the expectation that a reunion is imminent. Jesus is leaving, yes, but he’s leaving so that, when they follow, they’ll have a place there as well. I want to take moment to ponder on the place he’s going to prepare.

I don’t have enough space to talk about sufficiently about what heaven is going to be like, but let me just say this: We’re not going to be floating on clouds playing harps. Unless that’s what you want to do. Then, by all means, go ahead. Heaven will be life as it was intended to be lived. We will experience joy in its purest, most undiluted form. Every good thing you’ve ever experienced is good because Jesus made it that way. Think about sunlight. You may enjoy the sunshine as it comes through your window, but your window didn’t produce the light. It would be wrong for you to praise your window. It let the light in, yes, but it’s not the source of the light. If you walk over to your window, stick your head out and follow that beam of light back to its source, what will you see? The sun. The sun is the source of light coming through your window. Without the sun, that window wouldn’t produce any light at all. 

Every good thing you’ve ever experienced is like that window: it’s not good in and of itself just like the window is not illuminated in and of itself. All good things are good because God made them good. Without God, there is no good. God gave us good things to allow us to experience a small part of his goodness. And when we feel joy now, that’s a kind reminder to us that greater joy awaits. The intensity of goodness and joy we will experience in heaven is greater than anything we’ve ever experienced here, just like the intensity of light on the surface of the sun is so much greater than that coming through your window. 

So how is Jesus going to prepare that place? is he going to take his carpenter skills back to heaven and start nailing boards together? No. His father’s house is already there. He says there are many rooms in his father’s house. that’s not the part that needs preparation. Read the end of verse 2 again: “I am going away to prepare a place for you.” What Jesus meant is that the going away is what is going to prepare the place. The going itself is the preparation. In order for the way to be made for them to go, Jesus has to die. 

He is going way to prepare a place for them. He is going to pay for their sins on the cross to prepare a place for them. He is going to lay death in its grave to prepare a place for them. He’s going to leave death there and come out victorious so that the grave no longer has a hold on them and they will have a place to go. And if he does all of that, which he will, it would be absolutely inconceivable that he wouldn’t come back and get them to bring them to where he’s going to be. That’s verse 3: “If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”  

This reality is an encouragement to them that they will not be long in this world, and it’s a reminder to us that we won’t be long in this world either. See, whether we leave this world in death or we leave this world when Jesus comes back to take us all home, this world is not our home. If we follow Jesus, we’ve got a better one waiting. As a matter of fact, Jesus saw to the arrangements himself. He personally saw to it that we would have a home for all of eternity, and that there’s room enough for all of us, and that we’re going to be with one another and we’re going to be with him.

That’s why he says “you know the way to where I am going” in verse 4. He’s not talking about a path or a method or something you could list or chart out on a map. The disciples knew the way because they knew him. And friend, you know the way if you know him.

#blog