- May 3
- 7 min read
May 3, 2026
John 14:1-14
Our second reading on this 5th Sunday in Easter comes from John’s gospel. This passage takes place back at that night before Jesus’ arrest… before the crucifixion… before his resurrection. The challenge for us today is that many of the words you’re about to hear are so familiar that we think we already know what they mean. But trust me… the common interpretations attached to some of these verses simply don’t work when the words are fully heard in their original context.
So… I encourage you to listen… listen as though this is the first time you’ve heard this passage of scripture.
READ
There’s a phrase from our first reading that I think is very helpful as we begin to deconstruct what we think we know about this passage from John. 1st Peter speaks of growing into our salvation… pushing against this idea that salvation is some singular, one-time event of being saved… which in and of itself comes from a misreading of John’s gospel that we’re going to touch on later.
1st Peter talks about letting yourself be built into a spiritual house, into a holy priesthood… offering spiritual sacrifices… proclaiming the mighty acts of God. It talks about a faith that is being and becoming… growing into the salvation that is a transformation of a person from the sinful death of this world to a life lived in God… or to put it into Easter language, moving us from the tomb into resurrection. Becoming the people of God is about being the people of God and living out the ways of God. That’s why 1 Peter will later encourage the people of God to “have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart and a humble mind.” To “not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing.” This is what we are called to be and to do. These are the manner of the works of our salvation.
This Easter season reminds us how we are to become a resurrection people… not dead people bound for heaven. There is a big difference between the two. It is not one and the same. Our salvation as Christians is not about being saved from the endless oblivion of our physical death so we can someday have some manner of eternal spiritual life in heaven. No. Our salvation as Christians is to be resurrected from our spiritual and moral death… resurrected into the eternal life that is the way of God… that is the way of resurrection life that we are to live everyday. We are made alive by faith to live in God… not just to secure for ourselves some manner of life after death. To live a life fully in God means there is nothing to fear in death.
So again… we need to deconstruct this passage from John starting first with the verses about the many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Now… I know your thoughts are going to default to this afterlife vision of heaven… maybe to the promise you’ve heard of having your own afterlife mansion where you will spend all of eternity. The intention behind this idea itself is good, but the fruit of this interpretation has been shown to be bad. These few verses… lifted out of their context… are normally used to try to speak comfort to the grieving… to give assurance that your loved one is with God. That death is not the end and that God’s love and care extend beyond our own mortality. That’s the good intention of that interpretation.
However, the truth is we can trust in God’s steadfast love without this vision of heavenly mansions. God is good with or without the rewards we seek. Jesus, with these words, is also trying to give comfort to his disciples. That death is not the end… not just physical death, but the ways of death that the world keeps embracing. Yes, Jesus is leaving them, but he will be back and he will bring them to the place where he is going.
The misassumption that gets made is what that place is… because the place where Jesus is going is resurrection… not heaven. Jesus does not come back to lead his disciples into an afterlife heaven, but into the way of resurrection. It’s not a physical location… it is a spiritual rebirth. His Father’s house is not a place on a map; it is another way John’s gospel speaks of abiding in God. This gospel is full of well-known theological metaphors meant to invoke the understanding of dwelling in God. Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus repeatedly says things so that those listening will know and understand that “I and the Father are one.” In our passage, this is what Jesus is again trying to get across to Philip… this oneness with God. “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” To know Jesus is to know God. To abide in Jesus is to abide in God. This is the place Jesus is leading his disciples… the oneness with the Father. Oneness is the spiritual definition of resurrection.
These words about there being many dwelling places are meant to give the understanding of the wideness of God’s mercy… the openness of God’s welcoming. There is room for everyone in resurrection, not just Jesus alone. The whole movement of going off to live with God somewhere far away… on another plane of existence after whenever your death comes… is counter to the movement of God coming down… to this gospel’s words of incarnation… to God’s being and dwelling with God’s people. That is God’s intention throughout scripture.
Like I have been purposefully repeating all this Easter season, resurrection is not about a dead body come back to life. Resurrection is a sign of oneness with the life that is God. This the life that cannot die. That is the life that evil cannot overcome and kill. Jesus is fully revealed to be in that place in his resurrection. Jesus comes to take us to that same place in our resurrection.
Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” This gospel loves to take misunderstanding questions like this and then play with the words to reveal a deeper spiritual meaning. Way back at the beginning of the gospel, Nicodemus hears Jesus speak of being born from above and asks his misunderstanding question: “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” His mind locked in on a physical rebirth of some kind, Nicodemus doesn’t yet understand that Jesus is speaking of spiritual rebirth… being born of the Spirit. In that encounter, Jesus does not then teach Nicodemus a new religious methodology for spiritual rebirth. He does not give him new rituals or dress codes or specific prayer directions or any of the other things we often mistake for the way of the Spirit. Jesus is simply inviting him into abiding… into dwelling in God. This is the first step on the way of resurrection.
In this same conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus says another well-known verse from John’s gospel, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The same theological misassumption that gets applied to that well-known verse… turning belief into a performative act of religion… gets applied to the answer Jesus gives to Thomas’ misunderstanding question, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Both of those teachings get turned into an act of gatekeeping about the exclusive one-time salvation that only comes through the Christian religion… or certain forms of the Christian religion… which… unfortunately… is not the same as the salvation of becoming that is resurrection or oneness with God.
Jesus shows the way to resurrection life. Jesus teaches the way to resurrection life. Jesus walks the way to resurrection life. This is how Thomas already knows the way. It is not a mystery to be solved and unlocked with some secret key that only some possess. It is not an impossibility for him or the other disciples to follow on this way. Thomas has been doing it all along while he has followed Jesus. Growing in his salvation. Thomas has been walking in the way… with each step learning the way… being challenged time and again to stay on this way towards resurrection over and against slipping back into the sinful ways of the world.
To say that “No one comes to the Father except through me” is Jesus telling us how we must imitate him… how we too must strive to be Christ-like in our own way… and that in our being born again through the Spirit… we will find ourselves with God… abiding in God… dwelling in God. What does Jesus tell Philip? “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” This will be the next thing Thomas and Philip will hear Jesus say. It will be the first line from our scripture reading next week. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” This is the way to the resurrected life. And both disciples knew this way. You know this way as well. But what is it that keeps us turning away? What keeps us choosing instead empty tests of religious membership or some random checklist of rules we are supposed to follow. Why will we gleefully put all our energy and treasure into the fighting of some pointless culture war while our neighbor goes hungry or lives in fear of what the day might bring?
Jesus commands the heart to love… and for the hands to do the work of God’s abiding presence. And the way of God’s abiding presence is always the same… we know the way of these words: mercy, justice, compassion, forgiveness… love made visible. He is telling us the same thing he was telling Thomas and Philip and Nicodemus… this the way. Follow me. Amen.