This is my favorite chapter of my favorite book in the Bible. I almost hesitate to start this entry because I'm not sure I can find words to help someone else see what I see in this chapter of John. So let me start out slow....
I chose this picture on Pixabay because it shows what I see in my mind when I remember the times these verses in John chapter 14 have helped me. When I needed guidance from a dark place to the light of peace again, these verses provided the path. Fear, anger, grief...these create a darkness that it is hard to escape from. We need a life line, a road map to guide us out to the light again. "Let not your heart be troubled...."
I think that is a key component in these words that Jesus spoke to His disciples: "Let not..." Those words imply a control that you have to exert over your troubled emotions. The disciples were about to enter the hardest time in their lives so far. The events that had already been set in motion would lead them down a dark path of fear, anger and grief. Jesus was extending to them a lifeline now... "Don't let these negative emotions overwhelm you...Believe in Me. Please don't lose yourselves in the darkness, remember My words and Follow Me. I have plans that I am revealing to you now that will make you realize that there is Life beyond this time of Terror and Sadness. Follow the path I set for you, remember my words, seek the Light and the Life that is waiting beyond the darkness". This encouragement is for us too. It is very easy to get overwhelmed by events here on earth. It is our decision to Follow Jesus that makes a difference.
In answer to Thomas' question "How can we know the way?" (v.5) Jesus gives a simple, easy to remember answer "I am the way, the truth and the life" He explains His answer in terms of Faith in Him and in the Father. When that simple phrase was recalled, it would bring a message of Faith. Faith in the abiding Love of Jesus and in the awesome Power of God the Father.
Jesus message of encouragement, faith and hope is continued for the whole chapter. It is a wonderful testament to His love and caring for all of His disciples (even those of us who hadn't been born yet). I've read the words many times but a few months ago in a Bible Study group, as I was reading this chapter again, I saw something new in the last few words of the last verse "Arise and let us go hence!"(v.31)
It made me realize that Jesus sits beside us in the darkness when we are troubled. He gently reminds us of those words that help us see beyond our darkness "Let not your heart be troubled, Ye believe in God believe also in me, In my Father's house are many mansions..." But then He stands up. He holds out that wonderfully strong hand of His and He invites us to get up (arise) and walk with Him out of all of this.
This was a message I needed quite badly. My son passed away in October last year and even though the words of strength and comfort had pulled me out of the darkness of grief, a chance word or a stray thought would send me back again and again. I needed to see and to grasp this invitation which Jesus was extending to all of us. Now sad times still come when I miss my son with an intensity that's hard to bear. But knowing Jesus is walking beside me, I no longer linger there in the darkness... I walk with Him through it. And He assures me that I am not walking away from Christopher but towards him, because where my son is now... there is Christ and where Christ is.... There I will be also:
" And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" (v,3) .... Blessed words of comfort!