We're Heading Home

Holy Week

A year ago last fall my wife and I had a wonderful weeklong cruise on a ship up along the eastern side of Canada. We visited the Canadian maritime provinces, went down the St. Lawrence river to Quebec City and stayed in a comfortable timeshare apartment for a week. From there we flew back home.

Home! How good it was to be home! Canada was great. We really enjoyed the visit, but the people spoke French, a language we don't understand. Their customs and even their food are quite different from ours. We didn't belong there. It was great to be home!

Next Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, that week when the church focuses on the events leading up to Christ's suffering, death and resurrection. In that first Holy Week our Lord celebrated the Passover with his disciples. During the meal Jesus told them He was going home to his Father's house to make preparations for their coming as well.

"Let not your hearts be troubled," Jesus said. "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. And you know the way to where I am going." 

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." - John 14:1-7 ESV

Just before these words we read of Judas leaving on his dastardly mission to betray the Lord. After he was gone, Jesus urged the disciples to love one another and then told them he was going somewhere they could not follow, at least not yet. Peter wanted to go with him, even promising he would lay down his life for Jesus. Jesus soberly told Peter that before the rooster crowed in the early hours of the morning he not only would not lay down his life for Jesus. He would deny three times that he even knew him. What a troubling prophecy.

But, said the Lord to both Peter and the others, "Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Trust me as well. I am going away, but I am going to my Father's house to prepare a place for you—even you who will forsake me."

Now what exactly did Jesus mean by his Father's house? In the OT Bible the phrase father's house can refer to two things:

• The dwelling in which one's father lives. So Abraham, in seeking a wife for his son Isaac, sent his servant back to the land of his kindred and his father's house in the city of Nahor (Gen. 24:7-10). The servant's journey was successful. He brought back Rebekah and she became Isaac's wife. 
• But the father's house (Bayith Abi) in the Abraham and Isaac story also refers to the extended family, the relatives, the kindred and kinsmen (mowledeth), as well as in the later story of Rachel and Leah (Gen. 31:14-16) and other stories. 

This is picked up by the Lord Jesus when he promised Peter and the other disciples,

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. - Mar 10:29-30 ESV

Even in this age our Lord provides family, people bound to us by a common faith and rebirth by the power of the Holy Spirit. We all have the same Father in heaven and Jesus is our Brother. We are family. And in the age to come, after the great resurrection, it will be even better. All the joys of really knowing one another, sharing a common background, speaking the same language and being bound together as brothers and sisters and members of the same family will be ours forever and ever. All this Jesus has prepared for us by his life, suffering and death upon the cross of Calvary.

But there's more . . .

Where Shall We Live?

The sainted Ray Stedman continues his ministry through the Ray Stedman website and the organization that publishes his writings and a series of daily devotions. I appreciate what Ray taught and feel very close to him because of them. Here's what Ray says about the many rooms in the Father's house (John 14:1-14): 

 We must ask, "What is the Father's house?" Most of us take this to mean heaven, for heaven is usually viewed as the place where God dwells, but "heaven" is a very vague term. If we let Scripture interpret Scripture (as good expositors should) we would perhaps refer to a passage in the last chapter of Isaiah, where God says, "Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool," (Isaiah 66:1). This implication is clear that God dwells in the entire universe; that this vast cosmos, of which we are but a tiny part, is the Father's house. "In it," Jesus declares, "are many rooms." The word in Greek for "rooms" really means 'a place to live.' This word appears but twice in the New Testament, here and in Verse 23 of this same chapter. In that verse Jesus says, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

 The question of 'a place to live' is one that has occupied my wife and me for some time. You see, by God's grace and utmost generosity, we have the privilege of two houses we may call home, one in Texas and one in Colorado. I write these words from our Colorado house where we have lived for the past month. To this time, we've not considered this house our 'home', but rather our 'vacation home' where we come for a few weeks before returning 'home' to Texas. We're rethinking where we should live. Should we continue to move back and forth between two houses or finally sell one and settle down once and for all either in Colorado or in Texas? And yes, I know, it is a rare privilege to have two houses.

Regardless of how this all works out, the words of our Lord in John 14 are a great comfort to each one of us who believe in Him—especially for those of us who may not even own one house, let alone two. In all this vast creation, our Lord has a special place reserved just for me. He who has already set up house in my heart (John 14:23), has a plan and a place where He plans for me to be. He has reserved it for me by His cross and resurrection. He has prepared that 'room', that dwelling place, that house, that mansion where He wants me to serve Him forever and ever.

In Christ I have a purpose and a destiny. When I get there I will know with certainty that I have come home! This finally will be my place to live forever. I can hardly wait to get home. As the Apostle Paul said, "My desire is to depart and be with Christ" (Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:8; 2 Timothy 4:6).