By Brandon Gilman
Read
Let not your hearts be troubled. 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)
Reflect
Jesus is leaving. He has just told his disciples, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” Even worse, Jesus has just told Peter, His right-hand man, that he will deny Him publicly three times that night while being betrayed. Imagine the feeling of fear and confusion the disciples are now experiencing. Their Master is leaving them, and it seems like they won’t know what to do or where to go.
Here, Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” The solution to their troubled hearts is belief in God and Jesus. We should not skip this quickly because in saying, “believe also in me,” Jesus has affirmed His equality with the Father. Belief in Him is belief in God, for He is God. He states that He will go to prepare a place for them and return to bring the disciples home with Him. Jesus’s divine personhood and His action of going to the Father and returning for the disciples provides a balm for the disciple’s troubled hearts–-and our own.
Now Thomas, troubled Thomas, asks what everyone is thinking: we don’t know where you’re going, so how can we know the way there? Here, Jesus provides the great clarity that Thomas, the other disciples, and every one of us need most: the way is not a path…but a Person. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The disciples’ doubts are strong, but Jesus is stronger. When He says, “No one comes to the Father except through Me,” Jesus is not being exclusive for the sake of exclusivity but being honest about who He is: God the Son. He is the One who reveals God to the world, who contains all truth and life within Himself. The Father can only be known through His Son.
Apply
Jesus meets His disciples’ greatest doubts with what they need most: the affirmation that they have known and seen God the Father in Himself. The way that Jesus is going is the suffering of betrayal, torture, and death under God’s anger at human sin—and resurrection, ascension, and victorious return. He is making the way through Himself for all who will believe to know God. And this is the comfort we all need in the midst of a troubled world.
Pray
Father God, thank you for meeting me in my deepest doubts. I confess that I’ve often doubted your path for my life, that my troubles and anxieties make me wonder about how true You are. Thank You for sending Jesus so I could know You and be where You are forever. Today I choose to trust who Jesus is and what He has told me about You. Please increase my faith in the truth of Your Word. Increase my trust in Jesus alone for the path of life and truth. Help me to doubt my doubts by knowing You more today.
In Jesus’s holy name, we pray. Amen.
