A Place for Everything

“I go to prepare a place for you…”

John 14:2b

“I go to prepare a place for you…”  I have always read those words as Jesus telling us that He is preparing a place for us in heaven.  That is certainly what those words mean.   After all, Jesus prefaces those words with these – “In my Father’s house are many rooms.”  Jesus most certainly died on the cross, rose again on Easter and ascended into heaven that we might have a place in His Father’s house.  But then this morning, in my devotions, I read a prayer written a long time ago by someone named George Matheson.  That prayer got me to thinking – maybe Jesus was promising to prepare more than simply a place for  us in heaven. 

Here are the words of that prayer – “My Father, prepare a place for the child-life that lingers in my heart!  Even in the night teach me the song of the coming day.  Thou hast prepared a place for my yesterday – thou hast cancelled the dark deeds of my past.  Thou hast prepared a place for today – Thou hast promised strength for the hour.  But I have need beyond my yesterday beyond today; I have a yearning for tomorrow. Shall this be the only part of my soul for which there is no environment!  Thou hast provided for memory – Thou hast suffered my heart to see its past glorified.  Thou hast promised for the vision of today – Thou hast sent the energy with the emergency and refuge with the storm.  But is there to be no provision for hope, O my Father!  It cannot be – O My Father.  O my Father, it is not.  Behold the Lamb of God!  He is our Light in darkness, our Song in the night, the bright and morning Star, our joy and hope, the same yesterday, today, tonight, tomorrow, not and to eternity.  Amen.”

It struck me as I prayed that prayer that by going to the cross, Jesus did so much more that reserve a place for us in the Father’s heavenly house.  Mr. Matheson is right.  Jesus prepared a place for our yesterdays.  That place is his tomb.  After all, in baptism, we were each buried with Christ in His tomb so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might live a new life.  Think of it this way, having been raised with Christ, what remains in that tomb?  Our sin.  He left a place for our sins to be left behind, buried forever, remembered no more.  Isn’t that what God has promised, “I will remember your sin no more?”

What’s more by His death and resurrection He has prepared a place for our today!  Wow.  That also is what He gave us in baptism.  “We were buried with Christ by baptism into death in order that as Christ has been raised from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life.”    Luther tells us that our baptism every day gives us a new day to live – to live under forgiveness and grace.  In the Small Catechism We read that Baptism “signifies that that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die, along with all sin and evil desire, so that daily a new many might emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” 

In Christ, He gives us strength for the hour, energy for each emergency, a refuge for each storm.  I once asked a woman who lived every day for years in bed, able only to move one arm and her head – “How do you do it?”  She answered, “Jesus has taught me to live one moment at a time, looking to Him for each new day.  Yes by His death and resurrection Jesus has prepared for us a new life for each new moment.

And then also, as I have always heard in these words of Jesus, He has prepared hope for us, a place in His Father’s house, a tomorrow that will never end!  “For,” writes Paul, “if we have been united with Him a death like His, we will also be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”  One day He will give us brand new bodies, just like His resurrection body.  He will take us to a place will there will no more death, neither shall there be mourning or cry or pain, for the former things will have passed away.”  Yes that’s how He prepared a place in His Father’s house for us – He gave us a place to leave the past of sin behind… He gives us a place to live each new day on our journey – following and trusting in Him, knowing that on one of these “tomorrows” by His grace we will finally arrive at His home.  After all, Jesus has promised, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, You may be also.”  He truly has a place for everything. Amen.