A Christmas Wednesday in the Word...John 14:1-6

A Merry Christmas from the Wolfgangs united back in Maine.  Stephanie is home from her trip to Florida and being a good daughter to her mom and dad.  Thank you for your prayers for them.  

The photo is another beautiful winter sunset in Maine.  Even though it might be a "bit" cold for Stephanie, the sun and the scenery of this place make up for the chilly nose at times.  Anna got mom a special head gear to help with this so another photo will be coming to shown the updated winter gear.

We venture into chapter 14 of John today and it is fitting for us to look at Jesus' words to His disciples about His going when we are focused on His coming the first time.  May the manger always point to the cross, an empty tomb, and the belief in a coming again resurrected Savior.

Today's Wednesday in the Word is John chapter 14 and verses 1 through 6, which read,

v.1 - “Do not let your heart be troubled; 

believe in God, believe also in Me." 

The disciples' feet have been washed by Jesus.  Jesus has announced that one of them is going to betray Him.  Judas Iscariot leaves the company around the Last Supper table per Jesus' instruction to fulfill this part of the prophecy.  Jesus corrects Peter about his pride and gives a near prophecy of his denial of Himself 3 times before the morning rooster crows.  Now we are at these very famous words of Jesus that I have read many times at many funerals.

The disciples should really be speaking words of comfort to Jesus with the pronouncements of what is to come but it is the other way around.  They should have washed Jesus' feet but Jesus washes theirs.  John the Baptist got it right when Jesus came to be baptized and said it should be the other way around but Jesus insisted the order and the act.  The disciples' world is going to be turned upside down in one night.  They are going to run.  They are going to hide.  They are going to doubt.  In the face of this, Jesus tells them that if they believe in God, then they also need to believe in Him and everything He has said.  A paraphrase from me of what Jesus was saying would be, "Just like you believe in God and God's word given in the Old Testament, believe also in Me and the words that have come from My mouth."

Trouble is coming to the disciples but Jesus does not want them to go into despair.  He wants them to believe through it.  We live in a world of trouble.  We live in a world where despair could encompass how we think and act.  Jesus wants us to continue to believe.  We are to believe in what God has said in the Old Testament about a coming Messiah.  We are to believe in what Jesus has said in the New Testament about His salvation of us and how we are to live.  We are also to believe in what Jesus and the Apostles have said about His coming again.  In a land of trouble and despair, we are to believe.  What are we to believe?

v.2, 3 - "In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; 

if it were not so, I would have told you; 

for I go to prepare a place for you." 

"If I go and prepare a place for you, 

I will come again and receive you to Myself, 

that where I am, there you may be also."  

Jesus uses the beautiful imagery of a Jewish marriage.  The Jewish groom would be engaged (betrothed) to his Jewish bride.  He would live for a time to prepare a place, a room off of his father's house for he and his bride to live.  The father would give him the okay when all was ready to go back and bring his bride home.  The son, the groom, would then retrieve his bride when all was ready, when the father had said, and at a time not known by the bride.

Do you see Christ and His church?  Christ is the groom who has left for a time.  Why?  To prepare a room for His church, the bride, in His Father's house.  He is preparing it until the Father says, because He is the one who knows the day and the hour, to go back and retrieve Your bride, the church.  Just like the Jewish wedding, Jesus is going to be away for awhile but He is going to be preparing the place where we, the bride, the church, will come to be with Him forever.  Like the Jewish groom is making a pledge to his betrothed bride, so Jesus is making a pledge, a vow, to His disciples of what they are to believe in while He is gone.

v.4 - "And you know the way where I am going.” 

Why do the disciples know the way to heaven?  The answer is because Jesus has been telling, teaching, and showing them for the last 3 years.  He has been training them so that they could train others about the way.  The scary part is coming when Jesus, the mother bird, is going to push the disciples, the baby birds, out of the nest to fly.  

There is a way to where Jesus is going.  There is a certain way.  The way is spoken of by Jesus.  The road and gate are narrow that He has given His disciples.  The way involves denying your very self, taking up the cross, and following after everything Jesus.  They are going to have to rely on what Jesus has said to go where He is going.  

The same is true today.  Many will give ways to get to heaven but there is only one way and it is from the very lips of Jesus and no one else unless they are quoting Him.  So Thomas raises his hand and asks the obvious question.

v.5 - Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” 

Thank the Lord for Thomas and his raising of the hand.  The next words are so foundational to what we are to believe.  Jesus was headed to heaven, back to where He came from, and His disciples are still confused about His words.  This question allows Jesus to say so straightforwardly something to go against one of the attacks of Christianity today.  Jesus leaves no doubt or wiggle room in His response.  We can thank Thomas for this dumbfounded question.  

Jesus is going to give us another "I AM" statement.  I AM the Bread of life; I AM the Light of the world; I AM the Door of the sheep; I AM the Good Shepherd; I AM the Resurrection and the Life; and now I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

v.6 - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."

I AM identifies Jesus as God but we also have the exclusive statements of "no one" and "but through."  The only way to God for anyone is through Jesus.  No one will go where Jesus is going in any other way.  Jesus points the way; He is the truth; and He gives the everlasting life through what He is about to do in the next few hours.  In the midst of the greatest despair that His disciples will ever face, He wants them to believe, even onto death, that He is the only path to God.  

Do you believe this?  It seems to be something that is questioned by the world.  "There are many ways to heaven" is the mantra of the day.  Is there?  Is that what Jesus says?  Jesus gave His disciples and us believers something to hold unto when the world gets bleak and it seems evil is all around.  Jesus gave the assurance of where He was going, why He was going there, and the wedding vow promise of His return.  If He made such a vow to us, are we keeping our vow back to Him?  Do we look like the Bride of Christ?  Do we respond as someone "spoken for" and "taken up" by Him?  While He is gone, do we long for His return?  

This is a great Christmas thought as our eyes are on the manger scene and His first coming.  We laid eyes on our Groom for the first time.  He loved us to leave us so that He might return again for those who have loved Him back exclusively.

Merry Christmas!

Pastor Adam