“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And 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.” (John 14:1-3)
I know these words off by heart, and that’s because I’ve said them at every funeral I’ve ever taken (and I’ve taken a lot of funerals). They appear in every Anglican funeral liturgy, and I suspect they appear similarly in funeral rites across different Christian traditions, because they offer us a beautiful image of a hereafter where there is room for us all.
Many of us grew up with the King James Version: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions,” and that sounds even better! I love the idea of everyone getting their own mansion, and, let’s be honest, that would solve a lot of problems. I remember, at Uncle Jack’s funeral, thinking that adjoining mansions would be just fine for him and Aunty Ethel, so long as there was a bit of space between them.
If Jesus were creating a sales presentation for the afterlife, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions” would likely be in bold lettering across the front page of the brochure. Even so, and I hate to say it, I don’t think these verses really have anything to do with the afterlife. I hate to say it because I don’t want to trample on anyone’s cherished image of their loved ones enjoying their heavenly real estate, but the word “mansion” didn’t mean luxury when the King James Bible was published. It just meant “dwelling place” or “stopping place”, and the word in the original Greek text – ‘monai’ – similarly, simply means a place where you live or even just hang out.
More significantly, in terms of our understanding this passage, Jesus wasn’t saying these things to His disciples because they were about to die. It was Jesus who was about to die! When Jesus said he was “going” somewhere, He wasn’t referring to heaven — he was going to the cross. Yes, he says, “I will come again and take you to myself”, and He does come back after the resurrection, and then He comes to them again through the Spirit, but He doesn’t come back to take them to heaven. He comes back to them to be with them so that together they can continue in the work He has given them to do.
I’m tempted to offer a modern translation here: “In my Father’s office there are many workstations, and I go to prepare a cubicle for you.” That’s accurate, I think, except that I can’t bring myself to think of Jesus as an office manager. I have no problem with Jesus as a shepherd, a priest, or as my king, but not in a role where He has to wear a suit and tie. Moreover, the imagery here is not of Jesus assigning us jobs in the family business but of something more radical: the Father handing over the business to us. Jesus says, “The works that I do, you will do – and greater works.”
So these verses are not marketing for a heavenly retirement package, and yet they’re not all about finding your cubicle in the heavenly office block either. If we look at the broader discourse, we see that they are really all about Jesus’ promise that He is never going to leave us alone.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” That’s how our passage begins, and these words of reassurance are tied to the promise Jesus gives us in verse 18: “I will not leave you desolate.” That is the heartbeat of the passage. Jesus promises that he will never abandon his people – a promise that would have struck the disciples with enormous force because he was also telling them that he was about to disappear.
“You know the way to the place where I am going,” He says. “Lord, we do not know where you are going,” they reply. They are confused. They fear abandonment. Jesus is preparing them for the shock that is about to unfold. He will go, but He will return!
I’m really struck here by how much this resembles our own experience. Life with Jesus is a roller coaster. Jesus comes. Jesus goes. Jesus returns in the resurrection, and then He goes again. Then he returns again through the Spirit, though it often feels like he’s gone again.
The disciples are confused before he leaves. They despair when he’s gone, and they are scared when he returns. And just as they begin to adjust to having him back, he disappears again. This resonates with me too!
I remember a song I learnt in Sunday School:
“He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today.
He walks with me, He talks with me along life’s narrow way.”
What the song leaves out is how Jesus, ‘who walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way’ also regularly disappears on me mid‑walk!
Without doubt Jesus has His reasons, but the disciples struggled to make sense of why Jesus had to go to the cross even if it was somehow for their benefit. Jesus, likewise, told them it was good that he went away again after the resurrection because the Spirit would not come until he did—though it wasn’t obvious to them then, and it isn’t obvious to us now why it had to happen in exactly that way.
Life with Jesus is confusing and unpredictable. We don’t always understand why He is doing what He is doing, and we rarely know what’s coming next, but we have this central promise: “Let not your hearts be troubled… I will not leave you desolate.”
So forget the heavenly real estate brochures. Forget the mansions and the marble staircases. Jesus offers us something more valuable than a retirement village in the clouds. He offers us himself — His presence, His power, His Spirit, and His mission.
He goes to the cross. He rises from the grave. He breathes the Spirit and then hands us the keys to the family business, saying, “Greater works than these, please.”
So lift up your hearts and lift up your eyes. The One who goes before us also walks beside us. Jesus, who prepares a place for us, has also prepared us for that place. And the One who calls us into that place has promised that He will meet us there!
“I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also.” (John 14:3)
First published in Father Dave’s weekly newsletter – May 1st, 2026
