Do not let your hearts be troubled [Easter 5A - John 14:1-14]

 The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

John 14:1-14

 

Do Not Let Your Hearts be Troubled

 

This was not how things were supposed to go.  They had a nice little evening planned.  They had reserved a spacious room for a special meal.  And together they, all thirteen, were going to celebrate salvation, the ways in which God had written this powerful story of liberation on the muddled mess of human history.  They were going to eat and drink and tell stories.  They were going to sing hymns and say prayers.  It was going to be lovely, holy, perfect.

 

But it wasn’t perfect, not at all.  Instead, from the moment the settings were placed, things started falling apart, coming unraveled.  It was just one thing after another.  The party, as it progressed, took on a suffocating pall.  And everyone could feel the life drain from the room. 

 

The foot washing, in retrospect, was the beginning of the end.  I don’t know if you have ever tried to wash your dinner-party guests…but it changes the mood.  Early in the meal, just as things were getting good and loose, Jesus interrupted the dinner, took off his robe, and found a wash basin.  Right then and there he started to wash their feet.  And it was really awkward.  And Peter resisted and Jesus scolded him – gently but still it was embarrassing for everyone. 

 

And then, after each one had slipped their sandals back onto their damp feet, Jesus started teaching, which typically they enjoyed, but in the middle of his talk, he abruptly stopped.  And he got visibly upset; he was, one might say, troubled in spirit.  And he just blurted out, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.”  It knocked the wind right out of the disciples: an unexpected gut-punch. 

 

At first, thrown off-balance as they were, no one knew what or who Jesus was talking about.  They didn’t know it was Judas.  Judas was one of them.  How could they know?  That very evening, he ate the appetizers and had his feet washed.  He dipped his bread in the dish when it came around.  And when he left, this man who was their friend, they thought he was going out to buy dessert.  They didn’t suspect him.  After all, Jesus trusted him to handle the money.  Jesus trusted him.

 

Judas left.  And then Jesus told them that he, their teacher, friend, and Lord, was going to leave too.  Leave them.  Soon.  And they were not sure where he was going.  It was the worst dinner ever.  This was not how things were supposed to go.

 

And then Jesus says to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  But of course they are troubled.  And the trouble will only get worse.  Because this all happens on Maundy Thursday, the evening before the horrors of the cross.  The cross is the dreadful way Jesus will leave; for them that terrible truth was only just beginning to come into focus.

 

It’s always like this with Jesus.  He so sweetly and gently calls us to such impossible lives.  Love is really love your enemies.  Follow me is really take up your cross.  Give is really lay down your life.  Don’t let your hearts be troubled is planted in the shadow of the cross. 

 

In that miserable moment, around that gloomy table, all they wanted was to allow their hearts to soak up the sorrow.  They had earned troubled hearts.  They loved someone who was leaving.  Their sadness was their reward, a precious trinket to hold against their souls.  And Jesus wouldn’t even give them that.

 

Instead Jesus gave them something else; Jesus gave them a glimpse of hope in the midst of Holy Week.  That night threatened to crush them under the weight of despair.  Good Friday would only add to the unbearable burden.  But Jesus said to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God, believe also in me.”  Not belief as an intellectual exercise.  Not belief in the sense of having a strongly held opinion.  But belief as a way of life.  Jesus was asking them to trust him, to place their broken hearts in his gentle hands.  Jesus is asking them to believe the sun is still in the sky on the gloomiest of days.  To believe that God is still writing the powerful story of liberation on the muddled mess of human history.  To believe that God has an answer to all of their troubles.  And to believe so hard that it hurts.

 

This conversation in John’s Gospel takes place before Easter, but also it takes place in the blazing glow of Easter possibility.  When things look hopeless, and the shadows lengthen, and trouble is but a heartbeat away, believe in God.

 

Believe also in the Christ who has prepared a place for us.  The place is not a building, not a structure built by human hands.  The place is found in the yearning center of the intimate relationship of our Triune God, deep in the presence of God.  In some mysterious way we are invited into the heart of the God who lives in our hearts.   “So that where I am, there you may be also.”

 

On Maundy Thursday, as the dinner came to a pitiful end, and everything felt bad, and difficult changes were stacking up against their troubled hearts, Jesus showed his disciples the way in, the truth that would steady their troubled hearts, about a life lived in union with God.

 

In this tumultuous world, in these unsteady times, even when your heart is troubled, you are never left alone.  Because Jesus has made a permanent place for you in the divine presence.  God is with you; and you are held, held tightly, held lovingly, held eternally, in the spacious heart of God.  And in that divine presence there are so many dwelling places, room enough for us all, enough space for us to live there together.  It is the ocean in which we all swim, the great cloud of witnesses that encompasses us.  In Christ we live and move and have our being.  In Christ we find each other and find that we belong to each other.  And so even when our bodies are apart, and the distance of miles comes between us, and threat of time pulls us toward the abyss, we can trust that nothing can separate us from the love that holds us fast.  So do not let your hearts be troubled.  Your hearts are in good hands.