A new hope

Friday May 14, 2021

A new hope

You cannot come where I am going... Simon Peter said to him : Lord, where are you going ? John 13:33, 36

There are many mansions in my Father's house. If it wasn't, I would have told you. I'll make you a place. John 14: 2

These are the last moments of Jesus before the cross. He is with his disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem. Judas has just come out and Jesus can speak freely to those who remain. He recalls his very early departure and gives the command which should characterize their relations : Love one another. As I have loved you, so do you love one another (John 13:34).

The disciples feel that serious events are brewing. Jesus even spoke of a traitor in the person of Judas. Peter's question : Lord, where are you going ? is the occasion for Jesus to remind them that he is going to die. He also tells them about his Father's house that this death will open to them and where he will go after his sacrifice to prepare a place for them.

This is a new hope. It is very different from what they thought : the establishment of the earthly kingdom with the glory of the king, the honors expected by those who followed him. In fact, they are vying for first place (Luke 22:24).

In his Father's house, heavenly values ​​will prevail : all the redeemed will find a place there, they will experience intimacy with God and they will taste his Father's love. All the teaching of Jesus showed it, but the expectation of the kingdom in renunciation and humiliation is too difficult. It goes beyond their understanding and thwarts their hope.

Such a revelation will make sense later and the Spirit will guide the apostle Paul to announce this event, always awaited by believers: the rapture of the saints by Jesus Christ to bring them into the house of his Father. The Lord himself, at a given signal, by the voice of an archangel and the sound of the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven and those who have died in Christ will be resurrected first. Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we will always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4: 16,17).

Source (Pleasing the Lord)