Views from the Valley

Sunday, May 3, 2026

John 14:1-14

         “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. 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 will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

        Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 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. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe 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. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

The Sermon

Sometimes life hits you with surprises. Unexpected stuff. Songs are written about experiences like this. There’s a song by the rock group Chicago called “Baby, What a Big Surprise”, in which the lyrics speak about a man meeting a woman and thinking that she was faking it, until he realized that she really did love him, “right before my very eyes.”

        Other song titles like this are, “Right in Front of Me” and “Standing Right in Front of You.” The implications are that sometimes we are blind to things as we roll along in life, and all of a sudden something monumental happens, and there it is, standing right in front of us. In some cases, it might have just appeared; in other cases, it might have been there for a long time, or maybe all the way along, but we have just now noticed it.

        And as I think about it right now, I believe my Christian faith has been like that. Let me share with you a bit of my own personal story. I grew up going to church. Every Sunday, without fail, if the family was traveling, we’d find a church to attend somewhere else. When our church took two Sundays off for vacation, probably for the pastor, my family didn’t get a vacation from church. We went elsewhere then, too. Fern Cliff Evangelical Free Church. The Reformed Presbyterian Church. Those are the ones I remember. I’m sure there were others.

        So if anyone should ever think I lacked in religious education before graduating from high school, they would be sorely mistaken. The idea of not attending church was a very odd thing, and apparently for my dad in particular, it was simply not an option. I’m sure that sick members of my family didn’t go to church, but I expect that was pretty much the only excuse.

        And so, I learned Bible lessons and listened (as best I could) to sermons and went to a Pioneers class, church camp, and youth group, with plenty of exposure to the Bible and the stories of Jesus.

        And yet it seemed that there came a day when, “right before my very eyes,” I had a new understanding of what the story of Jesus meant, and changed the way I saw life. Even to this day, it still manages to change and evolve over time. I have become less dogmatic and insistent about the message that I believed in early on. I’ve softened in many ways and also gathered up more conviction in others. I believe that’s the way it should be. All that growth and change and questioning has included a great deal of angst as well as joy. Needless to say, after all those years of hearing the same story again and again, it seemed to come, and still comes, to life for me in a new way, “right before my very eyes.”

        I suppose that’s the way it was for Jesus’ disciples and his followers. Just when they thought they understood something, Jesus said something new, performed a miracle, did something utterly confounding and confusing, and lo and behold, “right before their very eyes,” something new arose. A new facet of Jesus. A new truth about the faith the people had been living. A new way of looking at some very ancient scripture. A new interpretation of some very old prophecy. A new revelation about some very familiar and ancient history.

        Imagine what it was like to have Jesus, “right before their very eyes” do the things he did, say the things he said, and watch him make his way to the cross, die, and be resurrected. Now, that’d be something to see.

        But I’m getting ahead of things when I speak of Jesus’ death and resurrection. As we enter our Scripture text from the gospel of John we find Jesus beginning a lengthy discourse that starts just following the departure of Judas from the table at the last supper, having committed to his scheme of betrayal. Also just prior to this, Jesus predicts to Simon Peter that he will soon deny Jesus three times before the rooster crows.

        At this point, the disciples have no clue what is about to happen. But then, that is probably somewhat normal for them, with all of the amazing things Jesus has done and said, and all the things that have happened around them. To them, it’s as “business as usual” as business could ever be with life around their Teacher. But their Teacher knows what’s coming down the pike, and so he proceeds to teach and advise, again. And in the beginning of this text, he begins with words designed to comfort. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”

        Why would our hearts be troubled, the disciples might wonder. “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. 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 will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

        Well, of course it’s no surprise that Thomas declares aloud, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going! How can we know the way?”

        In my mind, I think of him at this point saying, “Lord, what are you talking about? You’re right here! You aren’t going anywhere, and if you’re going somewhere, you’re going to have to tell us how to get there.”

        Oh, the joy of experiencing the so-called “cryptic” Jesus, speaking of things so difficult for the mind to grasp in their current reality as they sit in a room just having shared some bread and wine and having had their feet washed – one of the more incredible, loving expressions of Jesus’ love for them. And now he’s talking about going somewhere? Please, no. This is all too good. It can’t get any better. And now what?

        And to Thomas’s question comes Jesus’s reply: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

        He does not say, “Walk up here to the corner of Olive and Sycamore, turn left, then head toward Water Well Road.” Of course, what did they expect? Once again, Jesus turns something everyday into a lesson.

        Philip tries a new tack. “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Please. Give us a sign. Something we can see with our very eyes. I mean, we just haven’t had enough instruction, enough miracles. You’ve pulled a new rabbit out of your hat, so let us see it.

        And there it is, the sweet, deep breath of a Jesus sigh. “Oh Philip, oh my friends, have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me?”

        Of course we know you, Jesus…right? Yes? We should, anyway….

        “How can you say, ‘show me the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” Jesus asks.

        The who what? That One to whom Jesus prays often, as if he were a  beloved, intimate, trusting child? That One from whom the disciples feel a bit alienated, distant, a genealogical father of ancestral origin, the One who created Adam and Eve and the progeny who followed, out of whom came Abraham and the twelve tribes of Israel, David, the covenants, the prophetic promises. Jesus’ prayers, though, to this Father seem more intimate and personal than conversations with a great creator of generations.

        The Father, this Father, is in Jesus, he claims, saying, “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves.”

        Who among them had ever known anyone who claimed to be so intimately connected to the Father, the Creator, the origin of the cosmos? And in such a seemingly easy, natural way? Sitting right there in front of them, having broken bread, poured wine, and wiped their smelly feet? How could this be? Unfathomable.

        But as if to add the proverbial insult to injury, though in truth, it would not be insult or injury at all, Jesus says, “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. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

        There might have been silence here. We don’t really know. But imagine what the disciples might be thinking. Mouths agape, heads tilted, heads scratched. Jesus, the way, the truth, the life, going to the Father, then somehow enabling this motley crew of people to do the things Jesus has done and ask for whatever they wanted in his name?

        There he was, right before their very eyes, saying these things. There the words were, the promises, the comfort, the assurance, the plans. All such a mystery. But there they were, drinking in his words, because what else could they do? Why all this talk of going somewhere? He is right here, right now!

        But I suppose a knot of dread was forming in their stomachs already at the strange departure of Judas, who we might wonder had already begun to behave in mysteriously treacherous ways, and with Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s future denials within the following hours.

        The reality is, my friends, that the disciples who were seated there at that moment, so doting, so earnest, and so curious, had not yet really seen what was before their very eyes, yet.

        We are reading and listening to the gospel writer’s account of what transpired that night, written decades after it happened, yet as if he were sitting right there, next to Jesus, who was pouring his heart into the very heart of the listeners. Listeners and readers, by the way, including us. Because if it weren’t for those storytellers, witnesses and writers, we would not have these words today.

        And what they didn’t realize at the moment, but did later, as we discover now that the gospels have been written, preserved, translated, paraphrased and interpreted to us, is that the Father, the Creator, was sitting right there among them. Right before their very eyes. In Jesus. In Jesus’ words, in his miracles, his every teaching, his foot-washing, his wine-sharing, his healings, his loving, and the power of his touch. God, the Father, Mother Creator, Originator, and Lover of All Humankind and everything created, was there. Right before their very eyes.

        But it’s this last part that we tend to look at as a sort of add-on. A further mystery – because in some ways, yes, it still seems to be a mystery: the part where Jesus claims that “you” – meaning in that context, the disciples, but in this context also, YOU and ME – everyone here, “will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

        OK, so we might think, “What a privilege it was to be a disciple! They got to sit before Jesus, see him face-to-face, observe his works, hear his words, and experience him in full, living color.” And if the Father was in Jesus, then they were looking, perhaps unbeknownst to themselves, AT the Father they so desperately wanted to see to be satisfied.

        But the thing is, through this scripture and the stories we read and the prayers we pray, the creeds we profess and the work that we do in this church, we, too, are doing what the disciples were told to do: “Believe in God, believe also in me.” “I will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Where is the way? Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Right there in living color, right before our very eyes. Our belief in Jesus is our way to “see the Father,” in whatever way you might want to label our wonderful, adoring Creator God. Our Mother,  our Teacher, Helper, Sustainer, Uplifter, Hope-Giver, Healer, Absolute Lover God. If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. Study Jesus. Speak to Jesus. Be his disciple. Sit at his feet. He wants you to know him, and to know God.

        And then remember this: that right before the disciples’ very eyes, Jesus told them that they would do the wonderful things he did, and greater ones, indeed. That they could ask for things in Jesus’ name, and he would do them. This is a bit of a mystery, we know. It’s not a magic formula, because we pray often for things and say, “In Jesus’ name, amen,” and perhaps those prayers don’t seem to be magically answered the way we wanted them to. That is something to explore and ponder. It doesn’t stop me from asking for things in Jesus’ name. It encourages me to ask in that way, because it gives me the reassurance that he knows, ultimately, what is the most beautiful and best way to answer. And in asking, I trust that God will show me the beautiful way to pray in Jesus’ name, and the beautiful way to accept an answer that I may not yet understand.

        The disciples certainly didn’t understand all that yet. They would, in time, and those lessons came to us. Aren’t you glad?

        So consider this one final thing: that “right before our very eyes,” through the power of the Holy Spirit that God sent to the earth once Jesus ascended to heaven and was no longer physically present on this earth, we have Jesus IN US. God, the Father, Creator, Mother, Lover, Nourisher, IN US. We see, we believe, we pray. And thus we have, and know. Right before our very eyes.

        And furthermore, as we look at EACH OTHER in this place, serving one another and the world in our lives, praying for each other in Jesus’ name, reaching out and caring, thinking, working our tasks for this church and in this world, we see, right before our very eyes, God, through our faith in Jesus, present in this world, working in us and through us and all around us. It’s here. Right here. Right now. At the pulpit, in the communion bread and juice, in the servers, in the people with whom you share the bread. In the songs, in the prayers, in the hugs and bells and candle-lighting. In our light, through Jesus, that we take out into the world, praying God will be present and made more and more visible, the more we live and love and pray in Jesus’ name.         It’s right here. God is here. Right before our very eyes. Let us rejoice, and live fully and joyfully in Jesus, and in him, know and love God and be God’s light