Issue 411
How often has someone asked you ‘Where do you live?’ Superficially, the answer can be simple, in that you have an address with a post or zip code. Generally, you will answer such a question with the name of your locality. But the question can also mean ‘where are you really alive?’ ‘Where are you most at home?’ ‘To what are you most attached?’
There is an old English proverb which says ‘home is where the heart is’ and it speaks for itself. Another proverb states ‘there is no place like home’.
There is a great deal of talk in professional consulting of the skill of balancing home and work, which is often linked to time management.
We are talking a great deal about the fourth gospel, using the ‘what do you want?’ question as our guide through the whole document. We have reached chapter 14 which has a great deal to say about home. No doubt Mary, the mother of Jesus, had thought a lot about home. She had moved in with John at her son’s direction. She would have made her home with John and, being both strong and gracious, she would also have had to figure out the unwritten house rules and fit it in with the living style.
So when John comes to replay Jesus’ thoughts on home, he would have had a brilliant assistant in setting them down. Now Jesus, at this point, wants to calm trouble hearts. His team is in turmoil. A traitor has left. Peter has been advised he will make a massive mistake, they have all heard that their leader of the last three years is leaving and they know serious life and death plots are emerging.
So Jesus explains he’s going to an unimaginably large house with countless rooms and he is going to get places ready for them all to occupy. He is comforting their troubled hearts but challenging them as to where they live.
‘Do you know the way home?’ is a common question heard in a million cars, every second. Jesus now tells them he is also the way home, challenging them to think more about where they live.
Then some information follows on the house style. Love, expressing itself through obedience, is the house style in this home. Pretty much every website has the word ‘home’ on it. Click on that link and the house style of the webmaster is revealed. Click on the ‘home’ in John 14 and the house style is shown to be love, expressing itself through obedience. Look at the bottom of many websites and you will see ‘designed by’ or ‘powered by’. Look in the detail of Jesus’ words and he says he will empower us with the counsellor, the Spirit of God, who will teach you how to keep the house rules. He knows you can’t love or obey without some serious power.
And as we home in on the heart of this chapter two astounding statements surround your soul. Jesus explains one thing he won’t do and one thing he will. In these two statements everything is crystallized and defined.
‘I will not’ he says emphatically ‘leave you as orphans’. Jesus knows that we are hard wired to require a sense of parental anchoring in our deep selves in order to feel at home anywhere. This is not an image of parent and young child, it is the deep dynamic every adult carries which desires a psychological matrix to hold our very beings. To feel orphaned is to feel adrift, floating, lost, homeless.
Then the second astounding statement. ‘We will come and make our home with you’ (‘we’ means the Father and the Son).
There it is, held like diamonds in gold, a description of home. Defined, not by a postal or zip code, nor an area, but a presence – a presence of a Father and Son (experienced through the Spirit), a presence which banishes orphanhood for ever. A presence which defines your present state and future destination. A cast iron guarantee that home, heart, hope and security are built into your life.
At the beginning of this gospel, the ‘what do you want?’ question resolved into ‘they spent the day with him’. Here it is, resolving into a home life.
Now you can answer the questions differently. ‘Where do you live?’ resolves into – at home with God. ‘Where are you most alive?’ resolves into – everywhere with God. ‘What is the way home?’ resolves into – Jesus here and now and then and there.
The implications for your daily life and work are huge. Like a snail, you carry your home with you. You are not attached to any earth bound home at all. You are focused on the unseen reality.
There is no foreclosure here, no repossession, no homelessness. This truth sets you free. This way empowers you to live – really live.
So do you want that kind of home? Do you want those house guests? Do you want that destination? Do you want to feel at home at work, at rest – in fact, everywhere?
There is a way.
John 14
1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
“Come now; let us leave.
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Geoff Shattock
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