The Sermon for May 3rd, 2026, the Fourth Sunday after Easter
The Lessons: Deuteronomy 6:20-25; Psalm 66:1-11; 1 Peter 2:1-12; John 14:1-14
The Text: John 14:1-11
INTRODUCTION
Australian aborigines pictured heaven as a distant island beyond the western horizon. The early Finns thought heaven was a distant island in the faraway East. Mexicans, Peruvians, and Polynesians believed they went to the sun or moon after death. Native Americans believed that in the afterlife their spirits would hunt the spirits of buffalo.
The Gilgamesh Epic, an ancient Babylonian legend, refers to a resting place of heroes and hints at a tree of life. In the pyramids of Egypt, the embalmed bodies had maps placed beside them as guides to the future world. The Romans believed that the righteous would picnic in the Elysian fields while their horses grazed nearby. Seneca, the Roman philosopher, said, “The day thou fearest as the last is the birthday of eternity.” Although these depictions of the afterlife differ, the unifying testimony of the human heart throughout history is belief in life after death. Anthropological evidence suggests that every culture has a God-given, innate sense of the eternal – that this world is not all there is.[1]
(Randy Alcorn: Heaven. Tyndale, 2004)
JOHN 14:1-14: JESUS COMFORTS HIS DISCIPLES
In our Gospel Lesson today, the Lord Jesus Christ begins by telling his disciples not to let their heart be troubled. The Greek verb suggests the meaning that they should not let their heart continue to be troubled. They were troubled because they knew that Jesus would be betrayed by one of them, and that this would lead to his death. He had foretold his passion, death, and resurrection, and the time for it all to happen was almost upon them. Instead of giving way to grief beforehand, Jesus commanded his disciples to believe in God and to believe in him. The Greek verb for “believe” can be read either as a present tense active, which the King James Version takes it to be, or as a present imperative active, in which case the statements become commands to believe in God and in Jesus Christ.
Now Jesus does not just leave the disciples guessing about where he is going or even what their eternal future will be. He states quite clearly that there are many mansions in his Father’s house (John 14:2). What does he mean by this? The word “mansions” is used to translate a Greek word which simply means “abodes” or “dwelling places.” This means that there are homes in heaven for all who believe in Jesus Christ and persevere in that faith. There is abundant provision in the Father’s house for all believers! To encourage them he adds the statement, that if it were not so, he would have told his disciples (John 142b). Part of the reason for Christ’s ascension into heaven is to prepare a place for all God’s people. Without Christ’s death on the cross, no one could have a place in heaven, the Father’s house. As the hymn writer Cecil Alexander wrote:
There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin,
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven, and let us in.
(Verse 4, Hymn 65, 1940 Hymnal of The Episcopal Church)
After saying that is he is going to prepare a place for them, Jesus assures them he will come again and receive them to himself, so that where he is, they may be also (John 14:3). In saying this, Jesus was not speaking about his appearances to his disciples after his resurrection. For the Lord, in ascending to heaven, did not take any of the Apostles or disciples with him. Therefore, there are two possible meanings to what he is saying. The first is his Second Coming at the First Resurrection, when all believers who have died, as well as those still living on earth, are caught up in the air to meet with Jesus (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). The second meaning is that Jesus comes to receive each Christian soul to himself after its body has died on earth, and each is taken to live where Jesus is forever.
After this, Jesus adds the statement that his disciples know the way where he is going. Thomas then asks how they can know the way where he is going when they do not know where he is going (John 14:5). On a banal level, this question expresses the concern about not being able to find directions to a location via GPS because one does not know either the address or the name of the location, or even cross streets or landmarks near it. To Thomas’s question, Jesus gives a reply in terms of one of his great “I am” sayings in the Gospel according to St. John:
I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
(John 14:6, KJV)
This is one of the clearest statements in the New Testament that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation. Another noticeably clear statement is made by St. Peter in his defense of the name of Jesus Christ before the Jewish high priest, elders, and scribes after the healing of a crippled man:
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
(Acts 4:12, KJV)
When Jesus told his disciples that he is the way, the truth, and the life, he was showing them that he is the only way to God the Father and to the kingdom of heaven. To walk in that way, one must come to Jesus and believe in him for the forgiveness of sins, be baptized in his name and follow him as Lord, entrusting one’s whole life and control of it to him. This statement abolished the complexity of reaching heaven and God’s presence through observing many rules and regulations. Jesus the Way is a new beginning to life, a new path. Not only this, but this way that Jesus is, is the way of knowing God, not just intellectually acknowledging him, but having a relationship with him and through him and the Holy Spirit, with God the Father.
People of the world say flippantly, “Many roads lead to Rome,” and there are many paths to God. Our Christian faith, however, declares that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, the only way to the Father. In the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, we find this definitive statement:
XVIII. Of obtaining eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ.
They also are to be had accursed that presume to say, That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the light of Nature. For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.
(p.606, The Book of Common Prayer, 1928)
A GROWING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FATHER
Once one has become united with the Lord Jesus Christ in Baptism and through faith, one must follow where Jesus leads, and he leads one into the fullness of truth, and gives one an abundance of spiritual life. This includes a growing relationship with God the Father as one prays daily and trusts God increasingly. The result is that in coming to know Jesus Christ, one comes to know the Father, being adopted by the Father through and in his Son. The Holy Spirit will lead and guide one in all the truth that Jesus Christ is.
CONCLUSION
How will you consolidate your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and with the Father in him? You must grow in perseverance in prayer, in faith, in love, and obedience to God.
[1] p.164, Craig Brian Larson & Phyllis Ten Elshof (General Editors): 1001 Illustrations that Connect. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, Christianity Today International, 2008.