John 14:23-29

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

²⁴ He 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 Counselor, 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.

In the name of our risen and ascended Savior, dear friends,

 

            Preparing to go home can be a joyful and / or mournful activity.  At 3:15 P.M. during the school year I see many joyful children packing their book bags, preparing to go home after a day of school.  I recall my early high school years attending Michigan Lutheran Seminary, one of our Synod’s preparatory schools and the night before a Christmas or Easter or summer vacation.  Joyfully I packed my suitcase in preparation for going home for a while.  After some time at MLS and then in college, those times of preparing to go home brought mixed emotions.  While joyful to go home to Mom and Dad and brother, I knew I would miss my friends.  We also know how it can sometimes be a little mournful to prepare to go home.  Perhaps you’ve been on a particularly marvelous vacation to a wonderful place.  There is a touch of mourning as you pack your bags the night before you must go to the airport to return to snowy, cold Wisconsin in February.  And who hasn’t been a child or heard a child complain mournfully when told at Grandpa and Grandma’s or at the cousins’ house to put everything away and get ready to go home?  “I don’t wanna go home!  I wanna stay here!”

 

            I wonder if that emotional tug of war wasn’t part of Jesus’ situation on that Thursday night before his crucifixion, as he sat at the Passover meal table with his disciples.  He knew that very soon his work of rescue on this earth would be complete and that it would be time for him to return “home” to heaven.  How joyful that thought had to be to him!  But also he knew that his departure for “home” would also mean taking his visible presence from these disciples whom he loved.  How mournful that made his preparations for his departure!  Preparing for his departure for “home” was exactly what Jesus was doing that night, as the apostle John recorded the activity and words of Jesus on that night in his gospel.  John recorded how

Jesus Prepared to Go Home.

1.      He prepared himself.

2.      He prepared his disciples.

 

As Jesus gathered with his disciples that Thursday night before his trial and crucifixion he

prepared himself to go home.  One of the things that we do to prepare to go home is to get things in order.  Jesus was preparing to die and to go home to heaven.  He got things in order by setting down his last will and testament.  In a will we set down in legal terms what we want done with our earthly possessions when we die.  This is our agreement (testament) with those we list in the will.  Jesus left everything he had in this world to his disciples.  Jesus had nothing and yet he had everything.  He once told a man who said he’d follow Jesus anywhere, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).  Jesus had no house to call his own.  Jesus had no earthly possessions.  What Jesus did have in this world, however, was more valuable than anything else.  He had a body that was untouched by sin.  He had blood coursing through his veins that kept alive a perfect, holy life.  This was Jesus one and most precious earthly possession; his holy sinless life of body and blood.  This he willed to his disciples in the supper he gave them to eat that night.  In this supper Jesus leaves for his disciples the body in which he lived that holy life and the innocent life-blood that runs through his veins.  In this supper, then, he provides through forgiveness of sins the holiness necessary to have life without end in his heavenly Father’s home.  So Jesus prepared himself to go home by putting everything in order by giving his last will and testament to his disciples of all time.  

 

            Jesus did something else to prepare himself to go home.  He got something else in order, not that it was out of order.  Jesus took his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane where he spent a good amount of time in prayer to his Father, making sure everything was in order with Him.    In that time of prayer, depicted beautifully in one of our stained glass windows here in our church, Jesus conveyed to his Father his sincere desire to accomplish the rescue of a world of sinners from their sin and its eternal consequence of punishment in hell.  But since he knew that the rescue plan called for his enduring God’s punishment in hell for our sin he also asked if there might be some other way to accomplish the rescue.  Yet, Jesus said, “not what I want, but what you want, Father.”  Jesus was prepared to go home once the rescue mission was over because he had things “in order” with his heavenly Father.

 

            So it should be with us, his children.  As you and I daily face the real fact that our God-defined time to leave this earthly home could come at any time we must continually ask if everything is “in order” with our heavenly Father.  Is he at peace with me and I with him?  Is any peace I think I have with him a real peace, based on his will or is that peace of mind I have just something I’ve made up in my mind?  Or is the peace I have based on God’s will that in Christ my sins are forgiven?  Is the peace I think I have based on what Jesus told his disciples that Thursday night, that if we hear and trust his word, his promises, his commands, then he and his Father truly live with and in us, and we are already  part of his heavenly family?  In telling the disciples that the Father and he live in and with those who listen to and trust his word, he was telling them to never let that relationship die.  Cherish and trust his word of forgiveness and guidance. 

 

            In preparing to go home, not only did Jesus prepare himself, but he prepared others.  He prepared his disciples.  He knew what a difficult time would soon face that group he loved sitting around the table with him.  They would see terrible things in the next twenty-four hours:  Jesus arrested; Jesus on trial in a “kangaroo court”; Jesus handed over to the Roman governor; their own Jewish people screaming for Jesus’ crucifixion; and finally, Jesus executed on a cross like the worst of criminals.  And then, after they would see him risen from death, six short weeks later he’d “go home” to heaven, taking from them his visible presence.  Those would certainly be troubling and frightful times.  So he prepared his disciples for his departure.  He told them to not let their hearts be troubled and to not be afraid.  He spoke words that eventually would calm their troubled hearts and give courage and boldness to their fearful minds.  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”  That peace comes when Jesus and his Father live in their people through faith.  That indwelling of the Father and the Son is shown by the love his disciples have for his commands as shown in their obedience of them.  Jesus peace is given when the Holy Spirit reminds Jesus’ disciples of all that Jesus said and did for their eternal rescue.  This is a real peace for it is based on real forgiveness.  It’s not like the artificial and often hypocritical peace that is found in this world and often in us, where people say one thing, like “I forgive you”, and then do something else, like hold a grudge.  When Jesus says it’s forgiven, it’s forgiven.  He doesn’t give the way we do, looking for something in return.  It is clear from Scripture that the Holy Spirit works to give us Jesus’ peace through the good news of Jesus brought to us in word and in the sacraments of Baptism and Lord’s Supper.  In promising the Holy Spirit to them and the peace he brings, Jesus was preparing his disciples for his departure, just as we want to prepare our loved ones for our going home to be with Jesus by assuring them that God is at peace with us through the forgiveness Jesus has earned for us.  Since God is at peace with us, we can assure our loved ones we aren’t afraid to go home, nor should they have any question or worry about where we are going after life on this earth. 

 

            But Jesus wasn’t done preparing his disciples by getting them ready for his departure.  As he did that he was also preparing them for their own departures for their real home of heaven with him.  By assuring them of peace with God through forgiveness of sins Jesus was enabling his disciples to have the same confidence about eternity aged Simeon had, the elderly man who took the baby Jesus into his arms and then prayed, “Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all people” (Luke 2:29,30).  Total confidence about his eternal future because of that Savior!  No “I hope I’ll be in heaven”.  No comments like “I hope He has a place for me”!  Jesus prepares his disciples for their own departures for “home”.

 

            Our Mission Aid and Ladies Aid Societies heard such a story this week in a presentation from Pastor Tim Mueller, the Pastor and Director of The “ROC” , the Recreation and Outreach Center for teens operated by our sister Wisconsin Synod churches in Watertown.  They get a number of teens coming into the center who have troubles and some who have been in trouble with the Law who are looking for opportunities for court-mandated “community service” activities.  One of the “activities” Pastor Mueller gives some of them is one designed to help them learn that “community service” is sometimes as simple as spending some time with someone in conversation, especially elderly people in the community.  Pastor Mueller has created a list of questions for teens to ask senior citizens in order to strike up a conversation; questions like “What was it like living without TV?  When did you get your first car?  What was your first job?”  In the case of one teenage boy he had him sit down to play a few games of checkers with an 80+ year old gentleman who volunteered at the center and to ask him some of those questions.  After three games of checkers Pastor Mueller checked in on them and asked how it was going.  He then told the boy that he had one more question to ask this man before his “community service time” was up for the day.  He was to ask him, “Are you afraid to die?”  Without hesitation the old man said, “No!”  The boy didn’t need any prompting to ask the next question:  “Why not?”  The elderly gentleman quickly responded that Jesus has lived and died for him, to take away his sin and guilt before God for which he should be punished in hell.  He knows heaven is wide open for him in Jesus.  That’s real peace.  That’s Jesus’ peace that he gives his disciples.  That peace prepares Jesus’ disciples for their own departure for their eternal home.

 

            Jesus was doing all this preparing as he ate the Passover meal with his disciples the night he was betrayed.  The Passover meal was a family meal and a teaching meal.  The father and the youngest son were the main speakers in this teaching meal.  The son would ask, “Father, why do we eat this roasted lamb?”  Father would reply, “We eat the roasted lamb because the Lord our God commanded our ancestors enslaved in Egypt to slaughter a lamb, paint its blood around the doorframes of their houses and then roast and eat the lamb.  That night the angel of death passed over all the houses with blood on their doorframes, but brought death to every Egyptian house so that there was such chaos that the Egyptians let our ancestors leave their country.”  The son would ask, “Father, why do we eat this bread without yeast?”  Father would answer, “We eat the bread without yeast because the Lord our God commanded our ancestors to eat this bread in preparation for quickly leaving that land of slavery.”  The son would ask, “Father, why do we eat these bitter herbs on this night?”  Father answered, “We eat the bitter herbs on this night to remind us of the bitter life our ancestors lived while slaves to the Egyptians, and to rejoice in how our God freed them from that bitter slavery.”  That night Jesus probably “played the part” of the father, teaching his disciples the meaning of that meal.  From that meal he began another using the bread and wine, a meal in which he offers his body and blood for forgiveness and peace.

 

            Today is also our national “Mother’s Day”.  What Jesus did that night to prepare himself and his disciples for going home is what Christian Moms and Dads are to do, isn’t it?  Jesus taught his disciples that this world is temporary, but heaven is their real and permanent home.  Christian moms and dads also teach this.  Shouldn’t our children be learning from Mom and Dad that all the great things in this life and world are still touched by sin and are therefore temporary?  Our activities, games, toys, money…they’re all temporary.  Only Jesus and his forgiveness give us something permanent, a life in heaven.  In our Christian homes our children are to be learning from Mom and Dad that sinful behaviors are really hatred of God.  They are to be learning that love for God, as Jesus said, is expressed in obedience to his commandments.  Our children in our Christian homes are to be learning that real peace between parents and children and siblings comes through confession of sin and application of Jesus’ forgiveness won at great price on his cross.  And shouldn’t our children be learning in our homes that the day will come, perhaps at a young age, when Jesus calls us home.  Shouldn’t we Christian moms and dads be assuring our children that we are connected to Jesus in faith and are ready to go home when Jesus calls?  Shouldn’t we teach them to be ready in the same way?!  When our homes are places filled with Jesus’ peace they become homes in which moms, dads, sons and daughters are all prepared to let each other go home and to go home themselves.  As moms and dads teach and apply Jesus’ peace in their homes, Jesus is then preparing us all for going home!