All Enfolded – John 14:1-14

A text – John 14:1-14

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ 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. ⁴ And you know the way to the place where I am going.”  ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believebecause of the works themselves. ¹² Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

A reflection:

OK, words get translated from Jesus’s own Aramaic dialect into Greek to be written down for the ages, and then that Greek gets translated into English us today. All that translation means it’s helpful to know a language scholar. My favorite Gospel of John scholar, Dr. Karoline Lewis, has a thought on this passage.

She says that everything in the Gospel of John is about God being in love with everything God has created, especially human beings. It is summed up beautifully in John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The Creator wants no human being to perish. God loves each one so much that he lets his own son become a human being, a being that by its very nature must die, so that this son can conquer death and be the firstborn resurrected person in a new eternal reality with no more permanent death. Good news!

Yet in Chapter 14, our passage for today, verses 6-7 get used, not as a proclamation of good news, but as a barrier to salvation. The barrier-lovers ignore the conversation Jesus and Thomas are having: ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” First, these folks say, “Aha! Unless you’re a Christian you cannot get to God.” They try to change God from a lover of people into a judge and separator of people. That is not the God Jesus is explaining to Thomas. Second, Lewis says, we should read a kind of inflection into verse 7: “If you know me, you will know my Father also” should be read this way: “If you know me (and you do know me, don’t you my friends), then you already know my Father, right?” Jesus is reminding them that what they know and love about Jesus himself is in fact the very character of God the Father, their Creator, who loves them.

Why do people so love splitting hairs in order to judge people? Why do they insist on excluding anyone different? Jesus and God the Creator and the Holy Spirit love human beings. They want to gather all of us to their bosom in an eternal closeness and enfoldment, the way the shepherd loves getting every last sheep into the pen. Let’s allow ourselves and everyone else to take comfort in the eternal love that wants us, who are known and appreciated by the Triune God, to be gathered to eternal peace and delight. Isn’t it great that someone wants to enfold us all? Martin Luther said, “Life is full of misery. Think upon the Prince of Peace.” Yes. We know him. We do. As well as his Father. And we will be with him forever. No more misery. Ever. All of us enfolded into the very life of God.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for sending Jesus to show us the way that your love enfolds us. Help us never to use your words to exclude others from that love. Amen.