We are in the fifth and final week of our Easter Message Series. As a Church we continue to celebrate Jesus’s Resurrection. Easter tends to be a cheery time of year as Winter yields to Spring and we experience the freshness of the season. This Easter feels a bit different. We live in a very uncertain time. In the shadow of COVID 19 we do not know exactly how we are supposed to act.

In that way it is very much like the experience of the first Easter season. The apostles and early followers of Jesus did not wake up on Easter morning filled with confidence and hope for the future. But that mood changed through the course of that first Easter season. Over a period of about 40 days their spirits lifted. As they discovered the empty tomb and interacted with the risen Jesus, they had a totally different outlook on life. Their faith in the resurrection brought them to a place of hope and confidence in the future. 

In the first two weeks we talked about faith and how people came to faith in the resurrection. Over the last couple of weeks we looked at hope and the three degrees of hope: casual hope, precious hope and ultimate hope. The exercise we looked at was to make a list of what you are hoping for out of this crisis. Last week we looked at how listening to Jesus and hearing his voice helps us to find our hope. 

As we wrap up today we are looking at our ultimate hope. Jesus talks to us about the ultimate hope we can have. He discusses it in a passage we find in the Gospel of John. The scene from this passage takes place at the Last Supper. At the Last Supper, Jesus did and said all kinds of things that threw the apostles off balance. 

First, he got down on his hands and knees and washed their feet. That was an action reserved for servants and slaves, not something a teacher or rabbi would ever do. Then he tells them that one of them is about to betray him. Then he announces he is leaving them, and that Peter will deny him three times. Jesus throws out all these bombshells that completely disorient the apostles. Their whole view of life and their future is turned upside down. Kind of like our lives right now.

Then Jesus says this: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” (John 14:1)

The apostles might have been thinking. What are you talking about Jesus? Don’t let our hearts be troubled? You tell us you are going away and leaving us after we left everything behind and invested three years of our lives in you. Then you say one of us is a traitor and tell Peter he is going to deny even knowing you. If Peter, the guy we look to as your second chair leader denies you, then we will probably do so too. So of course our hearts will be troubled. 

Often in the midst of trials and tribulations we are deceived into believing we do not have a choice. We get some disturbing news either personally or from the larger world and we think automatically our hearts will be troubled. We assume we have no response but to be agitated in our hearts and souls. We assume if there are external problems, we have to become internally upset or agitated. 

When big things go wrong like you lose a client or lose some income or get in a fight with a child you feel like you have no other choice but to get agitated. When people disappoint you, you feel you have no choice but to get agitated. When you hear a news report that talks about more problems in the economy or the loss of life, you feel like you have no choice but to let your heart be troubled. 

Jesus pushes back. He says you do have a choice. When you receive bad news, you can choose to let your heart be troubled or you can choose a better option. Jesus provides us the better option, “Jesus says, ‘You have faith in God; have faith in me.’” (John 14:2)

You can choose to be agitated or choose to have faith. Another translation uses the word trust in me. Trust and faith are interchangeable. Faith in God and in his Son means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse. There have been times in your life when you had to trust people in the midst of a problem or when you could not make sense of a situation. A trusted advisor gave you some advice that didn’t make sense on the surface. Maybe you trusted your parents or an accountant or a mechanic or a doctor or financial advisor. They saw the bigger picture and while you didn’t understand it, you trusted them anyway. Then after you went through the experience, on the other side you could see in hindsight that they were right. You were glad you took their advice. 

The way to keep our hearts from being agitated is to trust in Jesus. Next, Jesus points to the future where they will be able to look back and be grateful that they put their faith and trust in him. 

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:3)

Jesus says in his Father’s house there are many dwelling places. There is plenty of room. It is not limited. What does Jesus mean by his Father’s house? The simplest explanation is the best. The Father’s house means heaven. Jesus tells the disciples that he goes to prepare a place for them. In order to prepare a place for them, Jesus must go through his Passion, death and resurrection. He must be betrayed by Judas and denied by Peter and die on the cross. He will then rise again and ascend into heaven to prepare a place for them. 

Jesus, through his Passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, goes to prepare a place for you in heaven. He prepares a place perfectly suited for you. Isn’t that a beautiful idea? Isn’t it a wonderful thought?

Our ultimate hope is not in this world or of this age. Our ultimate hope is in the next world and the next age when heaven and earth come together. Sometimes that can lead to criticism from others and it can throw us off balance. We hear the words of Marx that religion is the opiate of the people. Or other people in the world think we are just being naïve. Sometimes our culture makes it feel uneducated or simplistic to believe in heaven. Such challenges can stop you right in your tracks. You think maybe I should be more sophisticated than just believing in a pie in the sky. 

But at the end of the day there is either a heaven and a next life that fulfills all our hopes and deepest longings, or there is not. If there is not, then we should certainly get everything we possibly can out of this life. We should complete our bucket lists and grab all we can while we can. 

But if there is a heaven it changes everything, doesn’t it? And throughout our lives we feel the longing for heaven in our hearts and souls. We hear the whisperings of it in certain moments where we can feel eternity has been set in our hearts. We long for it and in every area of our life longing points to fulfillment. We hunger and there is food. We thirst and there is water. We hunger and thirst for eternal life because it exists and waits for us. 

Once we truly believe and put our hope in the next life and in heaven, it takes a bit of pressure off this life. No longer do my disappointments bear the same weight. They are not quite so heavy. My disappointments are not so crushing if this world is not all there is. All of the things you hope for in this life that go unfulfilled, if they are of precious value, will be fulfilled in eternal life. The people, the dreams, the fulfillment you hope for here is prepared for you by Jesus in the world and age to come. Jesus says he goes to prepare a place for you. This means that God who knows you and loves you prepares it for you. 

Jesus says do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not allow the current news to agitate you so much that you lose your faith and trust in him. In the future that Jesus is building, in eternal life you will look back and be glad that you put your faith and trust in him. 

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that there I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.” (John 14:4)

Jesus tells the apostles that he is leaving them to prepare a place for them but then he is coming back for them. This coming back has three different meanings. One, is that he will come back to them after the resurrection. He will appear to them. A second is that he will come back to them through the Holy Spirit. A third that he will come back for them at the end of time. Jesus says he comes to us through the Holy Spirit, and he will come for us at the end of time to take us to heaven to the place he has prepared for us. 

The he tells the apostles that they in fact know the way to heaven. They don’t have to worry about how they will get to the place he has prepared for them. 

“Then Thomas speaks up. He says, ‘Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way.’” (John 14:5).  Jesus responds, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father.” (John 14:6).

The way home, the way to heaven, the way to the place where all our hopes will ultimately be fulfilled is the person of Jesus Christ. He is the way home. A journey in this life with Jesus is the only way to realize the fulfillment of our ultimate hopes and dreams for the future. He is the only way to truly know God and to know his love for us and to reach the place he has prepared for us. He is the way, the truth and the life.

Jesus tells you that your ultimate hope is in heaven and the place he has prepared for you. I would encourage you to answer this question: do I believe in a heaven or not? Maybe your answer is I don’t know. That’s ok. What makes you doubt heaven or struggle to believe in it?

If you do believe in heaven. What are you hoping for? What do you hope is there? Who do you hope is there? What are three things you hope to see in heaven? Write them down. You may think it sounds silly, but if you believe in heaven then why not develop a concept of the place God has prepared for you there. 

Jesus teaches that there is a connection between this age and the age to come. He says that we can only truly discern and understand our current hopes in light of the next world. But they are not disconnected. Spiritual growth and spiritual maturity come from putting our hopes in proper perspective, and by getting clearer about what heaven will look like for us. 

We who believe in heaven have reason to grab hold of that promise with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline – reaching beyond all experiences to the very presence of God. You have to choose to take hold of this hope.