The "Place" that Jesus Prepares for Us! (a message for May 10, 2020)

If you’re familiar with today’s gospel reading—and I suspect you are!—you probably know it from its use at funerals.

And for good reason! There are few more comforting words at funerals than Jesus saying,”In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. … And 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.”

That passage—that Word—from Jesus allows us to reframe the meaning of the death of our loved one! In their hour of need, Jesus immediately and personally comes to usher them home. To be, and abide, with him forever!

Our hearts needn’t be troubled at death. Death is a homecoming!

So, no wonder we often choose this reading at funerals! It’s perfect!

This week, however, I learned something new about this passage that, while taking nothing away from its powerful message at the time of death, has something equally powerful to say to us now, in our current circumstances.

The passage begins, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” When it’s read at funerals, it’s clear that Jesus is talking to us. Our hearts are obviously the ones troubled over the death of a loved one!

But, when Jesus originally spoke it, whose hearts were troubled? And why?

In the Gospel of John, all of this is being said in the aftermath of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. During that meal Jesus reveals that one of his closest disciples—Judas—will betray him and cause Jesus to be arrested and crucified. Then, another of Jesus’ closest disciples—Peter—will deny that he even knows Jesus!

Everything, in other words, seems to be falling apart! Just like the world we’re in right now, all bets are off. And the world that Jesus’ followers had been counting on and looking forward to was no more!

And that’s what Jesus means when he says, today, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, and believe also in me”!

He’s saying that everything is not falling apart! While the world that Jesus’ followers had been counting on was no more, something else is happening that Jesus says is, frankly, better than what they had been imagining!

Have you heard of the concept of “reframing”? That’s when you’re encouraged to look at something in a new way or from a new perspective. Instead of “framing” it this way, you change your perspective and look at it this way. You “reframe” it.

And that’s what Jesus is doing in today’s gospel reading! And not simply for his disciples 2,000 years ago, but for us as well!

They—and, perhaps, we—have been looking at the world as if everything that they’d be counting on was falling apart. What they—and we—had been counting on and looking forward to was no more.

Each of us can bring to mind the parts of our world that currently seem to be falling apart. The things we cannot do and the people we cannot see. The future that had once seem solid and predictable no seems no more.

But it’s important for us to remind ourselves of what Jesus’ first disciples were facing! Beside betrayals and denials among Jesus’ closest followers, Jesus was explaining that he would soon be departing—and, seemingly, separating—from them.

They were devastated. And, they were scared. On Palm Sunday they had helped whip up the crowd’s hopes and expectations that Jesus was the true ruler; not simply of Israel, but of the entire world and Empire! He was God’s promised King and Son! And now? He was going away!

In the “frame” that they were using, their future—like ours—was dashed and their hopes were gone. So, what does Jesus do? How does he respond?

He asks them to “reframe” what is about to happen to him. And, more importantly, he asks them to reframe what his leaving them actually means!

What I learned this week that I never knew before is that the language Jesus is using in this passage—his talk about going away “to prepare a place for you so that where I am you may be also”—is the language of a bridegroom to a bride! In the words of scholar Jo-Ann Brant, “Jesus … treats his demise—his death—as analogous to a journey of a bridegroom to his home, where he prepares a place for his bride and future children”!

And lest we think the home that Jesus prepares for us is only after death—in heaven—the closer we get to Pentecost in three weeks, the more we’ll hear that the “place” that Jesus has gone away to prepare for us is the new life he now lives and breathes into his “new body;” which we call the Church!

“The Church is not a building! The Church is not a steeple! The Church is not a resting place. The Church is the people!”

“I am the Church! You are the Church! We are the Church together! All who follow Jesus,  all around the world. Yes, we’re the  Church together!”

By the way, that’s another important “reframing”! We’re so used to calling our building the “Church,” that we really need to reframe that language and perspective!

We are the Church. Good Shepherd Lutheran Church are the people who have banded together—and bound ourselves to one another—to follow Jesus, our Good Shepherd! Together!

So. While it’s altogether fitting and proper to use—and understand—today’s gospel reading in times of grief and death—reframing death as a time when Jesus comes to welcome us and bring us “home”—that isn’t the only use and meaning of this passage!

At the time when Jesus spoke it—a time, like now, when Jesus’ disciples felt like their world was falling apart—Jesus used a familiar expression that bridegrooms used in reference to their brides: Jesus, the bridegroom, leaves for a brief time so that he may prepare the dwelling plan where he and his bride will soon live together and raise a family. I go, Jesus says, “to prepare a place for you so that where I am you may be also.”

That isn’t just heaven! And the place where we and Jesus can be together is not simply after we die!

The “place” that Jesus has gone away to prepare for us is his new life as he lives and breathes in his “new body,” which we call the Church!

Do not let your hearts be troubled little flock of the Good Shepherd! Believe in Jesus and believe in God.

He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. For Christ is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia and Amen!