“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)These words are much loved and much quoted, and I’m sure have been for as long as there has been a church. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this passage, though, is the basis for Jesus’ promise: it isn’t based on what he’s taught them so far, or even on his crucifixion and resurrection, but on the fact that he’s going to leave them. It’s his going away that makes the fulfillment of his promise possible. There are various aspects to this, but perhaps the most reassuring is that when Jesus ascended, when he returned to heaven, he wasn’t leaving us, he was leading us; he was going ahead of us to prepare our way, to show us the way, to be our way. That’s why he says, “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, there you may also be”; and that’s one reason why he sent us his Spirit, as the agent through whom he leads and guides us in this life, on the way toward the kingdom of his Father. Remember, “the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it,” and he’s actively at work in and through all of it. Thus for us, the world is not silent, nor is God silent; rather, God is always speaking to us, and all of life is the medium through which he speaks.Most basically, of course, and most importantly, God speaks to us through the words he inspired, which include the record of the life he lived for us on this earth; it’s through the Bible first and foremost that Jesus leads us by his Spirit, as he continues to speak to us by his Spirit through these words, and he will not say anything that contradicts what he has already said. But that’s not the only way he speaks to us; it’s not the only way he guides us. He speaks through us sometimes as we talk with each other, making us agents of his wisdom; sometimes he may speak truth to us through people outside the church; he touches our minds and hearts through his creation, the natural world; and sometimes he speaks to us directly, in the back of our minds and the quiet of our hearts. I’ll never forget one time I was absolutely furious at someone—a couple someones, actually—and in my mind I heard Jesus say, “Show them grace.” I knew it was God, since it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and I protested angrily, “They don’t deserve it.” To which he responded, “I know. That’s why it’s called grace.”Granted, most of the time God doesn’t speak to us quite that clearly; I suspect I was being unusually dense that day. But he does speak to us, and he does lead us, and we can trust that fact no matter what; what’s more, we can trust that he’s good enough at leading us to overcome how bad we often are at following him. We don’t need to worry or be anxious about that, for we can trust God for his grace; we simply need to do our part. We need to spend time with him, in reading his word (the main way we come to know him and recognize his voice) and in prayer—not just talking to him, though that’s important, but also being silent, listening for his voice—so that we learn to know him when he speaks; and we need to learn to expect him to speak, because he is at work leading us by his Spirit every day, in every moment. Christ came down to seek us out in our sin and rescue us from the power of death, and he’s busy right now bringing us home; and what he starts, he finishes. Period. End of sentence.(Note: those with a philosophical bent might find Edward Tingley’s article “Gadamer and the Light of the Word” a valuable reflection on this matter; though Gadamer was not a believer, he gives a better account of the Spirit’s work than many Christians, and Tingley has some excellent things to say on this.)
