John 14:1-14

This text is used for the Lectionary Year A on May 18, 2014.

Jesus’s conversation with his disciples in John 14 is a staple at Christian funerals.  Rightly so, for in this passage we have the enormously comforting promise that Jesus will come back that his followers might be with him forever more.  The recollection of this promise should not be reserved for the graveside.  It should be preached from the pulpit, as well.  The pulpit provides an opportunity to explore the richness of this passage in full including its understanding of the key doctrines of the incarnation and salvation.

It is important to remember that Jesus has just finished predicting Judas’s betrayal, Peter’s denial, the disciples’ future suffering, and his own death!  Jesus speaks to men and women whose hearts are far from peaceful.  Before they despair, Jesus has good news they can count on: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me” (14:1).  Jesus assures them that even though he must leave them (13:33), he is not abandoning them.  If he goes, he goes to prepare a place for them, and he will come back to get them that they may be where he is (14:3).

The image of his Father’s house clearly means heaven and Christ’s coming back alludes to his second advent, though admittedly, John speaks of this less than the synoptic gospels.  While Christians have often used the picture of “many rooms” to speculate on the nature and perhaps levels of heaven, it is likely that Jesus means only to indicate that the Father’s realm has ample room and ample provision for all those who are a part of God’s family.  No one who belongs to God will ultimately be left without a place in God’s presence.  Not only do the disciples not need to fear being left out or looked over, they need not fear being lost, for Jesus assures them that they already “know the way to the place where I am going” (14:4).

Thomas’ spectacularly honest question provides Jesus the opportunity to expand his teaching (14:5).  The way to the Father is no secret: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (14:6).  If a person knows Jesus, they know the Father.  In fact, there is no other way to know him.  In our pluralistic society, this passage has caused all manner of consternation.  This frustration is understandable if Jesus is merely a religious teacher like other religious teachers.  If Jesus is God incarnate then his claim is understandable.  Jesus does not hold some secret path to God.  He is God revealed to us.  If eternal life is, as Jesus defined it in John 17:3, knowing God, then we find life and truth by knowing Jesus who is the Father revealed to us.  To claim that Jesus is the only way to the Father is to insist on the truth that there is only one true God.  The one God has made himself known in Christ Jesus.

Like Thomas’ question, Philip’s request to see the Father extends the discussion (14:8).  Philip does not yet understand that Jesus and the Father are one.  Philip may be asking for a theophany, that is, a radical display of God’s presence in creation as sometimes happened in the Old Testament.  Jesus explains that he is the radical display of God’s presence in creation.  God has not shown up in thunder and lightning and the shaking of earth and sea.  God has shown up in the atoms and cells that make up the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus says clearly, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me” (14:10).  The words that Jesus speaks and the works that he does are the words and works of the Father in the world (14:10).  Jesus once more invites the disciples to believe his words, or at least by his works, that he and the Father are one (14:11).

If they will believe, Jesus declares that they, too, will do the works of the Father.  Indeed, they “will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (14:12).  At that time, prayers to the Son or prayers to the Father in the Son’s name will have the same effect, further proving that Jesus’s words are true. He and the Father are the one and same God.

In choosing the direction of the sermon, the preacher could easily keep the focus on Jesus’s promise to return and take us to our heavenly home. Such sermons are necessary for the life of faith and should not be reserved for funerals.  Such sermons should intentionally stress how the hope of our eternal security provides us the courage to live faithfully today.  Preachers should resist the tendency to use such passages as escapism that distracts from the work at hand.  Jesus’s words were not meant to numb the disciples to the great trials that were unfolding around them.  Instead, his words were meant to quicken their spirits and strengthen their resolve for the days and years ahead when they would start a work that continues to this day.

As we noted above, more is at work in this passage than the promise of eternal life.  As the church increasingly finds itself as one voice among many, the exclusive claims of Jesus in this passage stand out in a world that denies any form of absolute truth.  Preachers must resist the arrogance that can accompany exclusive claims to the truth while continuing to insist that Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life because he is the One True God revealed in the flesh.  Remember, we as pastors are not the Way, the Truth, and the Life; Jesus is.  Such sermons might explore Philip’s apparent confusion. What would we expect to happen if God showed up? Why is it so difficult to believe that he has already arrived in the person of Jesus Christ? What in Jesus’s life and teaching convinces us that he is, indeed, the Word of God that took on flesh?

Sandlin

Taylor Sandlin
Pastor, Southland Baptist Church
San Angelo, Texas
Taylor@southlandbaptist.org

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