Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Hearts are troubled when loved ones depart. Jesus spoke of His death and departure and it put upon His disciples all of the disorientation and anxiety that comes when a loved one breaks the news that they are dying. That of course was not His intention. And loved ones do not disclose to us their impending death in order to send us into confusion and despair. Rather, they do so in order to prepare and strengthen us for the ordeal that lies ahead.

 

It is often debated whether it is better die suddenly and unexpectedly or to know that your death is coming some weeks or months ahead of time. While it may seem better to us that we do not see our death coming, one of the benefits of an expected death is the time given to prepare. You can prepare yourself and you can prepare others, although that is going to be a most difficult task. Jesus took time to prepare His disciples.

 

He had been preaching that it was necessary and was going to happen that He be rejected by the chief priests and elders, be crucified, die, and on the third day rise again. Peter had voiced the disbelief of all of the disciples when He said, “Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You” (Matthew 16:21-22). But it was happening and so on the night before His crucifixion, while they were gathered together in the upper room, Jesus gave the final preparations.

 

What would you say in order to prepare others for your impending death (not theirs, yours)? Without the death and resurrection of Jesus, what can you say?

 

Jesus spoke of His death and departure and it sounds somewhat like trying to explain death to a child. “Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you will follow afterward” (John 13:36). “I am going to the Father” (14:12); “that where I am you may be also” (14:3). “Have I been with you so long and still you do not know me?” (14:9). But Jesus’ words are not just trying to explain the mystery of death. They are words to conquer sadness and sorrow so that the disciples are not paralyzed by grief, but rather primed for action.

 

When Jesus told His disciples, “Where I am going you cannot follow,” they were naturally filled with anxiety and fear. They had not accepted the words of their beloved Master that He would die alone. They had been reluctant to let Him come again to Jerusalem, but when He was determined Thomas had said, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him” (John 11:16). Peter had also said on this very night, “Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for You” (13:37).

 

Jesus knew it would be different, that they would all flee away at His arrest (Mark 14:50) and that Peter would even deny knowing Him (John 13:38). It would be too difficult. They did not understand, much like we do not understand the death of our loved ones either, and we are prone to make rash promises to do things that we are unable to do, all stemming from the same fear and anxiety in the face of death.

 

But for Jesus, death is different. He went to His suffering and death knowing fully and completely not only the what, but the why, the how, and what would result from it—His glorious resurrection and the benefit for all that it would achieve.

 

For the disciples, any talk of going away as a euphemism of Jesus’ suffering and death, did not allay their fears. They did not believe that this was a going away from which He would come again. Their words and actions betrayed their unbelief. And so Jesus implored them to believe His words, for their fears were founded on doubt, just as our fears are founded on doubt and unbelief in the words of Jesus.

 

“Believe in God; believe also in Me” (John 14:1). Believe that God is gracious and merciful and will enact the plan for your salvation which He had from the beginning. Believe also in Jesus, that He is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, the One through whom your salvation will be completed. That is what the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus are all about.

 

So when Jesus said, “I am going to the Father,” it was not meant to be understood that He is going away to be distant from us. He was not going away because there was nothing that He could do or no reason for Him to come to us anymore. Rather, as He said to allay their fears and ours “I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3).

 

In order to understand what this means, we must believe in God and believe also in Jesus. This is not what any of our departed loved ones can say to us. Neither are we able to say this to anyone when our death approaches. Those who die in the faith go to the Father because of what Jesus has done, but they do not go to prepare a place for us. They go to their rest. The work has all been done because Jesus prepared a place for them and for us through His suffering and death for our sins and His resurrection in power over death that would try to hold us.

 

None of our beloved dead come again to us as Jesus continually comes to us through His Word and His promised presence in the Sacraments. Although we remember some words of our loved ones to us, they are not present in those words. Their words are preserved for a while in our memory, but they are not present.

 

Jesus, however, is present in His Word for He is the eternal Word of God. His Word continues to be living and active (Hebrews 4:12) and is not spoken as a memory of things that He said long ago, rather, His Word continues to be spoken to you even now. The things that He spoke to comfort and console His disciples in the face of His death, He speaks to you today with the power to allay your fears and provide you with the proper understanding of His death and resurrection for you.

 

Jesus went away to the Father in order that He might come again to bring us to Himself. Only the Son of God can do that. And this promise of His is not reserved only for some future day when you will be on your deathbed. It is a promise for today and every day, including those days when you are grieving the losses that death has taken from you.

 

Jesus comes to take you to Himself when He speaks to you His promises of being present. He comes in His Word and through your Baptism and in the giving of His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, that He might take us along with Himself to the Father. We enter with Jesus into the presence of God our heavenly Father so that we might present our prayers to Him. As our High Priest and with the cleansing power of His sacrificed blood, Jesus brings us to God the Father so that we might tell Him of our fears, and how much we miss our loved ones, and how we long to be set free from the paralyzing power of death, not just to get on with life but to thrive, empowered as His dear children in this world.

 

With the comforting presence of Jesus we confess to our heavenly Father that we have clung to invented ways of trying to keep our departed loved ones close. We have departed from the words of comfort that He provides and the salvation that He has given in Jesus, to believe instead that our dead come to us on their own and that they are somehow intervening in our lives and bringing secret messages to us, that they are doing on their own the things that only Jesus can do for us.

 

Redirected by Jesus we pray for the Father to comfort us in our sorrow with the real consolation that comes from the truth of salvation in His Son. It is only through the death and resurrection of Jesus that we come into the heavenly sanctuary where those who have departed in the faith have gone to the Father, and where we too are permitted to go through the means by which Jesus comes to take us there. We know that they are with Him and He comes to take us to Himself, so that where He is we might be also, together in Him.

 

The two can never be separated. If we are with Jesus, then we are also with the Father and with those whom He has taken to the Father. If we are not with Jesus, then we are not with the Father or with those whom He has taken to Him. Believe in God; believe also in Jesus.

 

Believe what Jesus said in response to Thomas and Philip as He answered their questions about how all of this could happen. Jesus told them that they already knew the way to the Father. Much like us in the disorientation of grief and sorrow Thomas had asked “How can we know the way?” (Jn 14:5). Jesus answered, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Jn 14:6).

 

There are no other ways to God the Father for our own salvation or for communion with those who are already with the Father. It is only through Jesus, through His death and resurrection, through His presence where He has promised to be. When we are with Jesus, gathered around His Word and sacraments, then we are on the way, abiding in the truth, and living in the life of Jesus, where, by which, and in which all those who have died in faith also abide and live.

 

But it is beyond the sight of our physical eyes, and we struggle with that. We are told to live by faith and not by sight and that is difficult. And so Jesus reminds us, “Believe in God; believe also in Me.” Philip said what we are all thinking, and probably said it with much more respect and reverence than we do. “Show us the Father, and it is enough for us” (Jn 14:8). Show us the One to whom You are going. Show us the One to whom we are going. Show us the One to whom our departed loved ones have gone. That would be enough.

 

We want to know that they are safe and secure and at peace and joyful. We want to know that they are cared for with compassion and surrounded with love. We want to know that is what awaits us also. We don’t like not being able to see. Jesus’ answer to Philip is so simple, but also very profound. “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). “Believe in God; believe also in Me.” If we want to know what kind of a God is holding our loved ones, what kind of God will claim us when we die, then take a look at Jesus.

 

Look at Jesus who washed His disciples feet that night (13:1-11). Look at Jesus who calmly offered words of consolation to calm the disciples fears and anxieties. Look at Jesus who instituted the Holy Supper by which He takes us to Himself so that where He is we may be also. Look at Jesus who willingly gave Himself into death for the sins of the world to rescue us from fear, sin, death, false beliefs, and grief.

 

That is the Father’s love for His children. That is the Father’s care for us. That is the security in which our departed loved ones are embraced and in which they live. Believe in God; believe also in Jesus. Believe that He comes to take us to Himself. Believe that He is the only way, the truth, and the life. Believe that seeing Him, you see the Father. The two are one God with the Holy Spirit, a glorious Trinity of divine love and mercy.

 

This consolation is ours through Christ Jesus. It allays our fears and anxieties over death, loss, and life in the world. It frees us from the paralysis of grief to get on with a life as God’s dearly loved children in this world—to do the same kind of loving acts that Jesus did for us, consoling others by pointing them to Jesus’ promises, and bearing crosses of love and sacrifice in order to relieve their anxieties and fears.

 

We would never be able to do such things if we were without Him and without those whom He has taken to the Father. But with the consoling and comforting words of Jesus concerning His death, we can live in the strength that comes from knowing Jesus’ resurrection, believing in God and believing in Him also. And with faith that where He is, there He brings us to the Father.