John 14:1-3 (ESV)
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. 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, that where I am you may be also.
Perhaps one of the most familiar passages of Scripture, the above passage is also one of the most reassurances of our Christian faith. We get so caught up in the world that we often simply fail to remember the truth that Jesus was giving the disciples in these words. To understand their complete power we have to put ourselves back into the situation of that moment. Jesus is in the upper room with them at a time referred to as the Last Supper. It was Passover and this was the last Passover Jesus’ would observe, with them, before His death on the cross. He has already washed their feet. He has already told them that Judas would betray Him. Judas has already left to do that very thing. He has already talked to them about being “one with each other through love”. He has started to tell them about the Holy Spirit being sent to them and picks that theme up more in chapter 14. But, at the introduction of the truth the Spirit is coming to them necessitates that He MUST GO.
He tells them that He is going, but gives them three important truths in the process:
1. He is going to His Father and they are to rejoice that if they believe in God they can also (and must also) believe in Him. He once again drive into them the truth that He and the Father are one. This truth speaks to His authority and His power and His trustworthiness. This is a key truth they much live on for the rest of the lives as they build the Church.
2. That He is not just going away, but that He is going away to build something for them. He is going to heaven to build rooms for them. This is the picture of a Jewish young man who is about to be married, going to His father’s house and building a room onto that house to have for him and his bride. We don’t think that way today, but in the ancient Jewish culture the family unit resided together. Jesus was going to the Father to prepare a place for them. That truth would give them hope that there was more to their lives then this simple worldly existence.
3. That He was coming again to get them. The great hope of the Christian faith is that Jesus is coming again. This is the same word picture of the Jewish man going to prepare a house for his bride. Once the house was built he would return to get his bride. The bride had to be ready at any moment for the groom to come to her. This is the picture of Christ and the Church. We are His bride and He is coming again to get us.
The disciples would have been encouraged by these words. They would have seen the obvious word picture for them. And that is the point of the verses. Jesus was trying to encourage them during a time that would be frightened for them. A time they would all deny Him, if even for a moment. But, it would be the words that encourage all of us as we live for Him in a world soon to be destroyed. He is going away to prepare and coming back again to get us to live with Him forever.
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