Let Not Your Heart

My family arrives at Grandma’s house.  She exclaims as we pile out of the car, “The only thing about saying ‘hello’ is I’ve gotta say ‘goodbye’”.  Saying “hello” implies saying “goodbye”; arriving suggests leaving;  Jesus’ coming means Jesus’ going.  Why does Jesus leave? Why must life have such parting and departing, particularly at life’s end?

Jesus’ disciples wonder the same thing.  Thursday evening before he is crucified, Jesus says to his disciples, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer”.  “Lord, You just got here…you’ve been saying the last three years, ‘Follow me’.”  Now you’re saying the opposite, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now…A little while, and you will no longer see me” Jesus’ disciples are in shock.  Jesus, the One whose Kingdom is to have no end and who “will reign over the house of Jacob forever”, is departing?

This is the background for Jesus’ heartwarming word to his disciples,  “Let not your heart be troubled.  Believe in God and believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”

“Let not your heart be troubled” .  The word “troubled” is full of trouble: it pictures a horse confronting a coiled rattlesnake, or a hurricane agitating the sea.  Being left alone by the Savior to a world of darkness and terror troubles the heart.  What’s troubling you?  Today, I do not know anyone who is not troubled; indeed, Jesus himself was ‘troubled’.  At the ‘Last Supper’ as he foresees his betrayal, he ‘was troubled in spirit’.  The shade of meaning Jesus uses in the tense of his word, “do not be troubled”, looks beyond the troubling moment.  It is a commanding imperative coming out of eternity:  “Do not go on letting your heart be troubled”;  “do not persist in being troubled.”  Though the immediate impact of a coiled rattlesnake in your path makes your heart pound, do not continue to be agitated.  Why not?  That brings us to Jesus’ second imperative.  The first imperative only works because of this second imperative.  It is the antidote for your troubled heart:  “Believe in God and believe also in me.”  If you trust in God, you will trust in Jesus Christ.  If you trust in Jesus Christ, then you trust in God. Once this trust is established, then your future is established:  you are not only going to see Jesus again; you are going to be with Him again - forever!

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  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, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Look at the phrase, “In My Father’s House”.  In England, one refers to the British Royal Family as the ‘House of Windsor’.  Similarly, ‘my Father’s House’ refers not to a structure , but to the Father’s Family or his Kingdom.  ‘Father’s House’ is the Father’s realm where the Father resides.

Keeping that in mind,  consider further.  “In my Father’s house, there are many _____.”   There is no exact translation of the word left blank variously translated, ‘mansions’, ‘rooms’, or ‘dwelling places’; a better term is ‘traveler’s rest’.  The idea of ‘traveler’s rest’ seems to be a place where weary pilgrims on a long and trying journey find long-term sanctuary.   A ‘traveler’s rest’ is a haven removed from suffering, from the weary struggles of conflicts and battles, and the dangers of dark forces.

In JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings , the Hobbit Frodo Baggins is on a perilous and strenuous odyssey to save the world from the Dark Forces. At a moment of impending death and capture, he is removed to safety to Rivendell.  Rivendell is a “traveler’s rest’ in a strategically fortified gorge offering him security and peaceful protection.  Here he convalesces in perfect safety.

Last October, my wife Pam and I had an ambitious day of travel.  We toured American Founder John Adams’ home and then drove across Boston.  Heading up into New Hampshire, we ambled around Robert Frost’s farm.  At early dusk, we arrived at our final destination, the New Hampshire country inn, Manor on Golden Pond .  In desperate need of country refuge and refreshment, we found a ‘traveler’s rest’!  We still savor the gourmet dinner in the elegant, paneled dining room; we see the view of Golden Pond out the picture window of our bedroom.

“In my Father’s house there are many permanent, traveler’s rests.”  Is there one for you?  Jesus says to his disciples, ‘I am departing to ready it for you.’  The Lord of Hosts is making up His disciple’s residence.  “If it were not so, I would have told you.’  This is a strong statement.  Jesus’ word is at stake.  One more thing:  ‘If I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and I will take you with me to my home.  So that where I am, there you may be also.’ 

Historically, English Lords, such as Lord Grantham in Downtown Abbey, invite people to their estates like ‘Downtown Abbey’ for ‘do’s’ - like his hunting party.  People come for days to the country and live off the hospitality of the Lord of the manor. 

The Lord of the heavenly realm has departed to go ahead of his disciples; He’s preparing eternal residences - ‘traveler’s rests’ - even one for you!  He very much wants you to join him there.  So that where He is, ‘there you may be also’.  Don’t you want to be with Him and his friends?  Knowing this means, you only have one final parting, and then no more ever again.  In the meantime, ‘do not go on letting your heart be troubled...trust in God and trust in Jesus Christ!

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Tom is currently a retired Elder in the Virginia Annual Conference.  He has pastored churches in Virginia, California and England.  Studying John Wesley’s theology, he received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of Bristol, Bristol, England and his Master of Divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary. While a student, he and his wife Pam lived in John Wesley’s Chapel “The New Room”, Bristol, England, the first established Methodist preaching house.  Tom was a faculty member of Asbury Theological Seminary. He has contributed articles to Methodist History and the Wesleyan Theological Journal. He and his wife have two children, daughter Karissa, who is an attorney in Richmond, Virginia, and, John, who is a recent graduate of Regent University.  Being a part of the development of their grandson Beau is a rich reward.  Tom enjoys a good book by a crackling fire with an English cup of tea.  His life text is, ‘Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire, to work and speak and think for thee’.

God’s Goodness and the One Ring

A Twilight Musing

Those of you who read the last installment of the “Letters of Ichabod” series will remember how it depicts the possibility that even a demon can be affected by the goodness of God.  That scenario may be far-fetched, but this conclusion to the career of Ichabod reflects a more certain truth: that the Goodness emanating from God will either transform the person who engages it, or the person will reject the Good and replace it with a counterfeit “good,” which then becomes an instrument of evil.  True goodness is a part of God’s nature that can be wielded only by Him and by those to whom He grants the grace to be avenues and instruments of His Goodness. God’s Goodness is a part of His non-contingent existence, which can be defined only by reference to Itself (cf. Ex. 3:14: “I AM WHO I AM”).

This fact reminds me of the nature of the One Ring, the Ring of Power in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.  Again and again, the characters in this epic struggle between good and evil are reminded that the Ring of Power cannot be used except according to the manipulative design of its creator, Sauron, the evil Lord of the Rings. All who try to use the Ring, even for good purposes, will be corrupted by that usage.  It strikes me that the reverse principle is true in a theological sense: Only God, who is Absolute Goodness and the Source of all true goodness, can bring out of His Goodness truly good things.

“To be drawn thus into the imprisoning vortex of Evil is to experience an ever-narrowing path leading away from all true reality.   By contrast, the drawing of the soul into the Goodness of God offers an infinite future for that soul’s development and enhancement. ”

To this similarity, however, must be added the observation so astutely made by St. Augustine in his Confessions (as a part of his rejection of his earlier Manichaeism), that evil has no separate existence and can be manifested only as a corruption of the Good.  Seen in that light, Sauron’s One Ring doesn’t represent a dualistic Evil Power equivalent in nature to the Good Power, but rather (like Satan) a horribly distorted counterfeit of the Good.  Consequently, unlike the Good, the only transformative capacity Evil has is to take its users farther away from reality into illusion.  To be drawn thus into the imprisoning vortex of Evil is to experience an ever-narrowing path leading away from all true reality.   By contrast, the drawing of the soul into the Goodness of God offers an infinite future for that soul’s development and enhancement.    C. S. Lewis depicts this contrast graphically in The Great Divorce, in which he shows the inhabitants of Hell continually and progressively growing more isolated from the center of things, because they chose to focus on their own “good” rather than embracing the great and essential Good. Herein is the chief pitfall of self-centered insistence on individualistically defining ourselves.  The noblest desires within us to be good and to do good can easily be diverted into a kind of solipsistic and pitiful parody of the Source of Goodness.   That associates us with the demonic “shadow government” that Ichabod’s letters were describing, a complete model of darkness purporting to be light.  (More to come about the intertwining of Goodness, Glory, and Light.)