Day 3

The Father's house

To Start

Quiet your mind and sit silently for a minute or so. Put down what you need to put down so that you can enter God’s presence with empty hands.

Pray

Yahweh, as we read, show us anything You want us to see. Don’t let our agenda get in the way of Your agenda. We submit to You.

Read

Read John 14:2-3.

Take a moment to picture the Father’s house (ask God to reveal it to you). It’s okay to use your imagination here (it’s encouraged), but it’s also okay to let your active mind blur, giving space for God to offer you an unexpected image.

• What images come to mind? What does the Father’s house look like? What does it feel like?

• What are you doing in the Father’s house?

• Who’s there with you?

• What’s missing?

• When are you in the house? Is it now? Is it in the future?

• If you had to use one word to describe the Father’s house, what word comes to mind?

John 14:2-3

CSB: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”

NLT: “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.”

KJV: “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

From JL

I hope you’ve taken the time to imagine the Father’s house in conversation with the Father. I hope you have an overwhelming feeling of joy or peace or security as you enter His presence.

I want to take a minute today to really try to understand what Jesus means when he says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms” or “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” How could one translator use the word “rooms” and another use the word “mansions”?

The word John uses here is “monē,” and it’s not the word Greek speakers would have used to describe a room in a house. It means “a dwelling place,” “an abode,” or “a staying.” I might say, “Well, an abode is a house.” And I’d be wrong. A house is an abode but an abode is not a house. Abode is a bigger word than house. It means anywhere one might abide. Or dwell. Or stay.

Translators chose the word “rooms” to match the word “house.” If God has a house, then the “dwelling place” inside a house must be a room.

King James translators used the word “mansions” because the word mansion comes from this Greek word “monē” and originally meant “an abode.” These days the word mansion has a shifted meaning indicating opulence and scale.

The most literal way of translating John 14:2 would be something like, “In my Father’s house are many abiding places” or “When you’re in the Father’s household, there is a lot of space for staying.”

And this matters why? Because it will directly affect when and where you place the Father’s house.

If you imagine a physical house with physical rooms, you’ll likely imagine a place you will one day go and stay forever (Heaven). You imagine Jesus leaving earth to oversee a Heavenly construction project.

But is that what He’s saying? What does Jesus mean when He says He’s going to prepare a place for the Apostles?

British theologian Lesslie Newbigin writes about this passage:

The death and resurrection of Jesus will inaugurate a new possibility—namely that while we are still on the way, we shall have a “place” where we can already taste the joy of the journey’s end… The “place” is not to be understood simply as the destination of their journey; rather there are many “abiding places” on the way, but they are all within the Father’s house.

In fact, the place where they are meeting is a kind of parable of these many “abiding places.” The disciples—according to the synoptic tradition —had been told to follow an unknown man to an unknown destination, and there they found a room prepared for them where Jesus came to meet them and abide with them. At every time and place where the disciples meet to eat and drink in the name of Jesus, he is there to be with them. Like the children of Israel in their journeying they have the pillar of cloud and fire, the presence of God Himself, to be with them both in their temporary encampments and on their marches. While still on the way, they will have already the presence of that which is promised at the end.

Perhaps the “place” Jesus is preparing is both right-now-tabernacle and one-day-temple. A tabernacle for the wilderness and a temple for our eternal rest.

This word “monē” only appears one other time in the New Testament and that’s right here in chapter 14, verse 23:

Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

In other words, My Father will love him and we will come him and make our “dwelling place” with him.

Is this passage about Heaven? It’s not not about Heaven. :) But it’s about something sooner, too: the indwelling of the Spirit in the church and the individual believer (which Jesus’ death and resurrection make possible).

When Jesus says to the apostles that He’s preparing a place “so that you will always be with me where I am,” He intends for “always” to begin at His resurrection from the grave.

Here in John 14-16, Jesus will say something like this: God is your house, and you are God’s house. Just as Christ is in the Father and the Father is in Christ, you are in Christ and Christ is in you. And because you’re in Christ, you’re in the Father. And because the Father is in Christ, the Father is in you.

It’s a mystery we’ll sit inside for the next 46 days.

Pray

This may seem weird (and you’re welcome to skip it), but I encourage you to ask God to lead you to a “dwelling place” or a place for “staying” with Him, and then close your eyes and clear your mind and see if He shows you a particular place.

I have several people in my life who have a unique place they go to in their minds when they want to be with Jesus. Each one asked God to show him or her the place, and each one found a distinct setting unveiled in their imagination. One of my friends goes to a garden. Another has a kind of hunting cabin on the coast. A third has a cottage in the woods. These aren’t physical places they’ve actually been, but they don’t have the sense that they imagined them. Each of these individuals feels like these spaces are God-given retreats, places for loving encounter. In some ways they feel more real than anywhere else.

To be totally honest, this isn’t something I’ve tried. Might be skepticism. Might be a lack of faith. Might be my very not-visual brain. But I want to try it. Today I’ll be praying for the guts to take a stab.

(BTW you’ve already tried this a little if you did the visualizing exercise at the top of today’s email. Maybe the “Father’s house” you imagined is the place where He wants to meet with you.)

In the comments

What do you think about these words: “If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself”?

What do they reveal about Who Jesus is? How do they make you feel?

Godspeed

-JL