Trust Also In...

 

Text: John 14:1-14

Focus: Trust

Function: to build faith

14:¹“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ²In 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? ³And 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. ⁴And you know the way to the place where I am going.” ⁵Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” ⁹Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰Do 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, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves. ¹²Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

The text for today is part of Jesus’ charge to the disciples during the last supper. It is his last and final instructions to them, a last minute sermon, if you will.

And I love the way it starts: “Do not let your hearts be troubled you believe in God, believe also in me.

“If that were not true, I wouldn’t have told you that I go to prepare a place for you.”

I love the comfort those words bring. I almost invariably read those words of comfort at a funeral celebration.

Jesus means a lot when he says these words to the disciples. The Gospel of John starts out with the symbolism of Jesus being the Word of God incarnated. Literally, the Greek word used in John’s translation is Logos. Logos means “words of.” For example psyche -human mind- and Logos form the word Psychology, the study of the human mind.

Jesus is the theology of God. The Word of God. The picture of God that we can understand. God is infinite and although we can imagine infinity, we can’t quantify it. But we believe that God can. And God, who is infinite wanted us finite humans to understand God’s own self so God became human in the form of Jesus the Christ so that we can understand what God wants to us to know about God.

And Jesus made it clear: God wants us to love others. I have spent my life trying to understand the mystery of the cross of Christ. God portrayed that image of God’s own self as the suffering servant prophesied on Isaiah 53 and God allowed Himself to be crucified instead of fighting back and calling the 10,000 angels at his ready disposal.

What a way to show us love! It show us that we don’t have to be involved in a system of justice that brings retribution anymore. Jesus changed that and showed us a system of justice that is designed to restore to wholeness the evildoer. From the cross Jesus prayed to the Father to forgive his murderers. What love is expressed in the midst of human suffering! I am amazed by it and it points to the nature of the Christ who redeems humanity.

And then Jesus briefly mentions heaven, or an eternal reward and he tells them that is something, apparently inside of them, that they understand in a mysterious or mystical way, through perhaps the Spirit of God herself that leads us to believe in the afterlife.

I sense it. I believe according to this text that Jesus is suggesting that we all sense it. We sense that there is more to life that here on earth. We sense the existence of heaven.

And Thomas says to him, yes, but we don’t quite understand.

And Jesus tells him that it is simple. If we see God for whom God is, then we will see and agree that Jesus is sent from God, the Christ who is anointed to restore the world to God and to each other.

Those, by implication, that reject the idea of the Jesus the Christ are rejecting the notion of a just and loving God.

Because, Jesus, as John points out is the picture of God that God wants us to see is the Christ who loves and accepts everyone. Throughout the gospels the only people that he chastises are those who are not willing to accept others. I call them the self-righteous.

It is important to understand that there were many righteous people during the time of Christ. They were described in one instance as those who were waiting for the Kingdom of God to come.

Joseph, Mary’s husband, along with Zachariah and Elisabeth, Mary’s uncle and aunt were considered to be righteous people in the eyes of the Lord.

They were saved because they lived a life honoring God in the way they treat others.

They were and are people who believe in the just and loving nature of God and who turn away from doing evil and treating others poorly because they believe God to indeed be the final judge of the earth.

Easter brings us good news about that. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, we can rest assured of the justice as well.

So Jesus tells them. Do you want to know what God is like? Look at me. If you can accept me and my teachings, then you have accepted God.

It is kind of like telling them, Look, of you trust in me, the Christ, then you are trusting in God. If you are trusting in God, then it will be obvious to you that I speak for God and have come from God and I represent God.

But remember the first line of today’s text. “Do not let your heart be troubled, you believe in God, trust also in me.”

The name “Jesus” literally means Savior. Jesus came to save us. So, he is saying: Let not your heart be troubled, the idea of God isn’t foreign to you, so let the idea of the Christ, the Savior sent from God settle in your hearts as well.

Let yourself have hope and rest in God.

That doesn’t mean it will be easy. But it does mean that God is with you.

I witnessed it in a powerful way last weekend at Kairos. The guy sitting to my left was a recent convert to Christianity. He told me how he knew he needed a change and he started crying out to God and how God met him in a supernatural way and led him to Christ.

He had an odd sort of faith but it was genuine.

And then he told us that he was led by God to leave the Aryan Nation brotherhood gang in the prison.

He told them he became a Christian and could no longer walk in their violent ways so, he casually says, “they bled me out.”

I was shocked that he was so casual about it. Bleeding out of a gang is sometimes lethal. But he told them if they forced him to stay he would just keep preaching at them, so they cut him out of the gang without killing him, but, there was bloodshed involved, he was beat up real good and ever since then, they have left him alone and he now feels safe. But for the first few weeks after he confessed Christ, he didn’t know if he was destined for a shiv in the compound or his freedom. God spared his life, but he took the step in faith.

I was pretty blown away by his commitment to Christ.

Jesus didn’t say it was going to be easy. There will be tests, trials, and resistance to us. But still he said, “let not your hearts be troubled, rest in God, rest also in me.”