" Let not your heart be troubled."
It is a very special sorrow to which the Lord addresses Himself here for the comfort of His own. It is no ordinary sorrow such as abounds for every child of God in his path through this evil world, but the special sorrow of any who know Jesus well enough to miss Him in a scene out of which He has been cast by the unanimous consent of man. Beloved, let us put it to our hearts, do we miss Him? We have known His work for salvation, but have we gone on to know Himself for love? Do your hearts know enough of Jesus to be desolate in a place where He is not? Ah then, we know the disciples' sorrow and to us as well as them belongs the comfort of the words of Jesus.
See how He counts on the disciples' love and consequent sorrow: for He has no sooner broken it to them in gentle words, that only " yet a little while " He can be with them, than He adds " let not your heart be troubled." Precious fruit of His own love that, where-ever it is known, detaches hearts from the world without Him, by attaching them to Himself. Yes, He whom they had known and loved, and followed on earth in such precious intimacy was about to return, to the Father, and they would now no longer know Him after the flesh; yet He was only going to take the same place as the unseen God, where He would be still known by faith and in all the deeper revelations of the glory of His person that would result from that place.
But will He enter alone into His joy and leave us in our wilderness desolation? No, He only goes to prepare a place for us there too, and to wait for the moment when He can come and fetch us into it. Beloved, He speaks to us of home. " Go to my brethren," says He, from the mouth of His open and empty grave, " and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God." Henceforth, His Father is our Father-His God, our God-His home, our home. And if there are in it " many mansions," His love has already set apart the place for each individual object of it. None but the one for whom such place is prepared by Jesus can fill it for His heart. How precious to be still and ever the objects of such love! Now, in His absence we need the assurance of it and He gives it to us.
But there is more; and more there must be to meet the necessities of those to whom, by these very revelations, Jesus is becoming more precious every day. Is this separation to last forever? No. He could not bear it any more than we. So He gives us what hearts that truly love Him could not do without-the promise, " I will come again and receive you unto Myself." Precious hope for us, beloved, till hope shall be lost in the consummation of it, and we shall see Him face to face. Is the coming of the Lord more than a doctrine to us? Is it a deep spring of joy even in hope? Is it a living power in our souls? But the promise goes on " that where I am, there ye may be also," and this tells us that the necessity of our hearts is His own; that, not for our joy only, but for His, we must be where He is. And, beloved, that is the heaven of the Christian's hope. Scripture has but little about heaven, for all desire, all joy, all hope is summed up for any who know Jesus ever so feebly, in that " where I am " of His. His presence is the very heaven of heavens to us.
May we be more occupied with Himself where He is now, and sharing His own hope of being with Him forever, in the Father's house, where He Himself has prepared a place for us.
" He and I in that bright glory
One deep joy shall share:
Mine to be forever with Him,
His that I am there."