Coming Home

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” John 14:1-3 

Jesus had just finished eating the Passover supper with his disciples. For three years they had been practically inseparable. They traveled together, walking the dusty paths. The disciples had stood by while Jesus healed sick bodies and raised the dead to life. They had seen Him turn water to wine and walk on water, but this season was ending. Jesus has identified the disciple who would betray him and predicted that Peter would deny him. Even though Peter said, “I am ready to die for you,” Jesus told Peter, “You can’t go with me now.” Peter’s heart was troubled.

Then Jesus gives his disciples a sneak peek into the unseen realm when he says, “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.” And “I am going to prepare a place for you. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.”

I love that Jesus refers to heaven as “my Father’s home.” When you and I hear these words, we may picture our childhood home or the place where our dad lives today, but a first century reader would have gotten a very different visual. The father would add a wing to his house when a son would marry. When another son married, another wing was added. Eventually the original dwelling would become a set of dwellings that enclosed a courtyard in the middle. All the relatives lived around that courtyard with the father there in the midst of the home. 

Jesus said, “I’m going to prepare a place for you and I will come and get you.” We need not be troubled. Our eternal dwelling place with Jesus will be a place where God the Father is in the center. When Jesus finally comes to get us, it will simply feel like we are coming home.