I Go to Prepare a Place for You

Our Sunday school lesson this week focused on John 14.

We began with a short history lesson of our modern day Bible as we know it.  Stephen Langton was a Catholic Cardinal, who was commissioned by the Anglican Church of England to be the Bishop of Canterbury (and later the Arch Bishop) during England’s break from the Catholic Church into Protestantism.

The Anglican Church of England is the Diocesan Head of the United States Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Ireland and Wales. With each country having its own Lead Bishop for the country, (Ours is Bishop Micheal Curry) and each sub-diocese its own General Bishop (ours for Northern California is Bishop Barry Beisner, who’s seat is at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Sacramento). In 1227 AD, Arch Bishop Langton divided the books of the Bible into the chapters and verse that we know today.

Another scholar of theology, in 16th century France, Robert Etienne (also known in Latin as Stephanus) was the first to actually print the Bible into the divided chapters and verse that we know today.

In 1560, the first mass printing of the Geneva Bible was completed. It was adopted by the Church of Scotland as their official Bible.

This version of the Bible is significant because, for the very first time, a mechanically printed, mass-produced Bible was made available directly to the general public which came with a variety of scriptural study guides and aids (collectively called an apparatus), which included verse citations that allow the reader to cross-reference one verse with numerous relevant verses in the rest of the Bible, introductions to each book of the Bible that acted to summarize all of the material that each book would cover, maps, tables, woodcut illustrations, and indices.

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In John 13:31 through John 14:21, we read of the last Passover , which was marked by the first Holy Communion.
While Jesus was dying on the cross, the world was cloaked in darkness. The sun was eclipsed from noon until three in the afternoon.

Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44–45 state the darkness lasted three hours:  (Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.)

It was during this period of darkness that God Himself, turned His back on Jesus. The weight of the sins of the world on His son, - - it was too much to bear. Jesus cried, out Father why have you forsaken me?  The Heart of Jesus was broken and he gave up his spirit and died.

So we have journeyed through the Gospel of John from the Baptism of Jesus, to the teachings of Jesus, to the Last Passover, and to the crucifixion. We are left to ponder:
Is it the journey or the destination? Which is important?

You decide. But before discerning this, let’s look at the following versus:

Exodus 23:20 —See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.
God prepared a place for the Israelites. The place was Canaan. However, in order for Canaan to be their new land, the Israelites has to remain in obedience to God in overtaking the current occupants.
God also has prepared a place for us, but what must we do to get there?

This is our own, individual as well as corporate journey.

In John 14:1-2, Jesus comforts his disciples:
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God ; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?

Here, we are told that we will have a place prepared for us. In Hebrew, the word for rooms is monai. This word is only mentioned in two places. In Israel, it was quite common, as families grew, to add on more rooms (often in an upwardly versus horizontally fashion), and so, we will have rooms of glory prepared for us, when our journey is complete.

In John 14:23, Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

So here, we also learn that through our love and faith and obedience to Jesus and the New Covenant, we will make our home with him at our journey’s end.

Hebrews 11:8-16 and 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. Also speak to both the journey and the destination.
It is through the journey that we gain experience and wisdom and learn through God’s guidance, discipline, testing of us, as well as His great love, mercy, and grace, and our own strengths, weaknesses, failures, and achievements.

It is through this journey that Jesus grooms us to be true and faithful disciples of the Word, so that we are well-deserving of and prepared for our final destination.
So, is it the journey or the destination? Which is important?
You decide.