Jesus filled the days between Palm Sunday and Good Friday with basic truths for His followers. Because I love Him, I want to hear His heart. Therefore, I look to John 14 for insights. Due to knowing the heaviness of what lays ahead of Him, diamonds of truth exist for me. As a result, I discover from His words, these precious gems about Jesus, about the Father, and about the Helper.
Jesus
In the beginning of the chapter we find Jesus, since he knew what was ahead, trying to comfort his disciples. Therein, He tells them He is going away but it is to make things ready for them. Further, he tells them if he goes away, He will come back and get them. He was confident they knew the way.
Thomas, perhaps on behalf of the others, voiced his doubts. We don’t know where You are going. How can we know the way. Thus, Jesus tells him,
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.”
We also learn that He revealed the Father. Because He loves the Father, He obeys Him. Therefore, His desire is to glorify the Father. Thus prayers go up to the Father on our behalf and we talk to the Father using His name. It is through Jesus we have life and a loving union with the Father.
Because Jesus lived without sin, the ruler of this world had no hold on Him. The Son had the power to lay down His life and to take it up again just as His Father had commanded Him.
Jesus is also the giver of peace, a peace that is beyond the world’s peace and He did not want His disciples to be troubled or afraid. As a result, He mentioned it more than once.
The Father
When Jesus told them if they had known Him, they would have known the Father, we hear Phillip voice His confusion,
“Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.”
Jesus asks,
“Have I been with you so long and you have not known me, Phillip?
Jesus explained,
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
He told them the words He speaks are not His own but come from the Father who lives within Him. This happens because the Father is His authority. Then, He challenged them to believe He is in the Father and the Father is within Him. If they can’t believe His words, He says,
“Believe Me for the sake of the WORKS themselves.”
Jesus is going to the Father. Because the Father sent Him, He is now going to return to Him. He and the Father are One. As a result, his disciples should rejoice. God, the Father authorized the plans. Most importantly, He is greater than Jesus.
The Holy Spirit
The next disciple to question Jesus is Judas (Not Iscariot). He wants to know how Jesus can show Himself to them but not to the world?
Jesus told His disciples that if they love Him and keep His commandments, He and the Father will come and make their home within them. As a result, He will ask the Father to give them another Helper; One that can live with them forever.
He will not leave them as orphans! Therefore, in the name of Jesus, the Father commissions the Holy Spirit. Now, this Helper, the Comforter, will teach all things and bring to memory all the things Jesus communicated. The world, however, cannot see or know Him.
As a diamond has many facets, so does God. He who is above all, illustrates His great love for us in sending His Son Jesus. By and through Him, we understand and relate to God. Above all, through the death of Jesus on the cross, a door opens to us enabling access to the Father. Because of the prayers Jesus offered for us, the Father sent us a Helper, a Comforter, His own Spirit, in the Name of Jesus to live with us forever.
The great and infinite God, gave us Jesus in the flesh so we could know the Father. Then when He took Jesus back home, He sent us the Helper, the great Comforter who helps us in our weakness as we cry out “Abba Father”. In humility of heart we give You thanks Dear Jesus.