May 3, 2026 Sermon

Sermon Title:  “Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled”

Scripture:  John 14:1-14

(Other lectionary suggestions include Acts 7:55-60, Psalm31:1-5, and I Peter 2:2-10).

John 14:1-14

Jesus the Way to the Father

1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2In 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? 3And 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. 4And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9Jesus 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’? 10Do 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. 11Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12Very 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. 13I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

          Last week the sermon was about Jesus being the shepherd of the sheep. This week he seems to continue caring for his flock. He doesn’t want them to worry when he goes away from the earthly scene. Also, he utters a line that has always troubled me:  “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” A friend of mine, now a retired minister, tried to make the point that to know God as Father, you had to know Jesus first. Well, maybe. Perhaps to know God as Creator, you don’t need Jesus. I don’t know. I’m just throwing out possibilities. Whatever Jesus meant, I personally have to believe that he wasn’t trying to be exclusive and keep people out.

          But what he was trying to say was that if you want to know what God is like, look at me. “I and the Father are one,” he says. And he tells Philip, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” The one thing we believers DON’T want to do is to reject people who believe differently from us. Unfortunately, some of our fellow Christians have tried to use Jesus’s words to reject those who may believe a little differently. I personally believe Jesus wanted to include everybody who was interested. And look how he treated others. We are told he ate with sinners, and I especially like the fact that he did NOT stone the woman caught in adultery. He DID say, “Go and sin no more,” but he did not cast the first stone!

          In order to learn a little more, I looked up WorkingPreacher.com, and I found these words from the Rev. Elisabeth Johnson. She says, “Jesus calls them back to this fundamental relationship of trust and assures them that he is not abandoning them. Rather, he is returning to his Father, which is good news for them. In speaking of his ascension to the Father, Jesus assures his disciples that this is also their destination. There are many dwellings in his Father’s house...” And the assumption is that the relationship Jesus has with his Father will also be the disciples’ relationship with God, too.

          Did you notice how literal Thomas is? He is taking Jesus literally, and it’s almost as if he wants a roadmap!

          Now for what Rev. Johnson has to say about that passage that is troubling to me. She says, “Unfortunately, this verse has often been used as a trump card, or worse, as a threat, to tell people that they better get with the program and “accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior” in order to be saved. To interpret the verse this way is to rip it from its context and do violence to the spirit of Jesus’ words.”

          She goes on to say that “this statement by Jesus is a promise, a word of comfort to his disciples. Jesus himself is all they need; there is no need to panic, no need to search desperately for a secret map. Jesus adds, ‘If you know me, you will know my father also.’ Jesus adds, “From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

          At this point in the Gospel of John, Jesus echoes an affirmation from the prologue, Chapter 1, verse 8:  “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart who has made him known.”

          And that’s the whole point of Jesus’s mission, “to make known the Father, to reveal who God is. Jesus, who has come from the bosom of the Father and is now returning there, is the fullest revelation of the person and character of God. If we want to know who God is, we need to look no further than Jesus. All the words that Jesus has spoken, all the works that he has done, come from God and show us who God is.” This makes me remember something my high school minister said one time:  Do you want to know what God is like? Then look at Jesus of Nazareth. That’s what God is like.

          Rev. Elisabeth Johnson continues by saying:  This passage has everything to do with life here and now because Jesus entrusts his mission to his disciples. “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. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it” (14:13-14).

          Yet here is where Jesus’ promise becomes a little hard to swallow. Greater works than these? Really, Jesus? Greater works than healing the blind and raising the dead? And you will do whatever we ask in your name? We have all known the pain of praying for healing that did not come, of feeling powerless in the face of disease and death. How can these promises be true?

          Perhaps our problem is that in hearing these promises, we expect to do these greater works in the same way that Jesus did them — with miraculous power that instantly solves the problem at hand. Yet even miracles are not guaranteed to produce faith. Many in John’s Gospel who witness the “signs” that Jesus performs have trouble seeing the work of God right before their eyes.

          Toward the end of John’s Gospel, Thomas sees the risen Lord and confesses, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28). Jesus responds, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is not so much a scolding for Thomas as a blessing for us who have not seen and yet believe, however feeble our believing may seem.

          Jesus promises to be with us through the power of the Spirit, to work in and through us to accomplish his purposes in the world. This does not necessarily happen in easily visible, spectacular ways. Yet wherever there is healing, reconciling, life-giving work happening, this is the work of God. Wherever there is life in abundance, this is Jesus’ presence in our midst.

          “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (1:18). Jesus has made known to us the heart of God, and he has entrusted this mission of “making known” to us. Where might we see Jesus’ work and presence in our midst? How might we show others the very heart of God? Amen.

Pastor Skip