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Week Forty-Three, Day One

John 14:1-14

Jesus has just told them that he was going away. Peter declares that he will follow him wherever he goes, but Jesus says, “No, before the night is up you will deny me three times.” Then Jesus says one of the favorite lines in the Gospel of John:

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God and believe in me.

I love the way this chapter begins so much that I quote it at almost every funeral. Of course, it follows with the promise that, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.”

That promise is comforting in the face of death, I suppose, but the first verse is what gives this promise context. It is against the background of Peter’s predictable failure that Jesus says “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Times of testing will come. You will know personal failures and shame, but don’t despair. Believe. Believe in God, and believe in me. In other words, when the circumstances of your life cause you to lose self confidence, continue to have confidence in God and in the grace of God that Jesus came to bring you.

When you lose or fail so badly that you are filled with shame, it is easy to lose faith in yourself. Those times come to us all. What Jesus is saying is, when they come, don’t lose faith in God, because, if Jesus’ teachings mean anything at all, we can trust that God hasn’t lost confidence in us. Our failure does not determine God’s opinion of us or diminish God’s love for us. In the face of failure, believe in the God who will never abandon you, even in death.

Soon Jesus will give them a new understanding of resurrection. What he is offering here is that, even in the face of terrible failures like denying Jesus, there is still life and a place for us in the family of God.

Despite my commitment to gender-balanced language, I have left the original language in Jesus’ promise. Perhaps it is because I have known so many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people who have been kicked out of their homes by their fathers. Jesus is calling us to trust that nothing done to us or by us can cost us a place in our heavenly Father’s house.

Blessings,

Michael Piazza
President, Hope for Peace & Justice

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