You will all be familiar with this text, (I am sure), “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” You will (perhaps), remember that in our Bibles it is: John 14:1; the very beginning, the opening verse of chapter 14. And that is where, so often, we begin to read: John chapter 14, verse 1 at the funeral service, for example.

But, if one starts to read in chapter 13, at the very end of the chapter and if one ignores the break at the end of chapter 13 and at the beginning of chapter 14, one gets something like this:

“Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me: and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come.”

Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.” Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times. Don 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 take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also…”

Read through like that, it seems to me, that when our Lord said, “do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me,” the first person he had in mind was Peter; Peter, who would deny him, Peter, who would fail at the testing time:

“Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

But not Peter only. Soon Thomas and then Philip would be asking questions which would expose their vulnerability under test.

They, as well as Peter, they, and all the rest, would fail at the testing time.

Communion

As we come to the Lord's Table again it is to hear our Lord say yet again to us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

What is it that troubles our hearts? It is just what troubled the disciples’ hearts at the beginning.

1. First of all there is our feeling of failure:

How in so many ways,
Great and small,
We have let our Master down.

And sometimes we feel it deeply.
Like David we say,
“For I know my transgressions,
And my sin is ever before me.”

I cannot get away from it;
It haunts me.
The finger of accusation seems ever to be pointing at us:
You are the one!
The one who sinned, failed, denied!

Perhaps sometimes, like Charles Wesley, we cry
“Depth of mercy! Can there be
Mercy still restored for me?”
I have “Grieved Him by a thousand falls.”

Listen, and listen well,
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in me.”

2. But then there is our anxiety about the future –

“Our future all unknown.”
What is going to happen?
And what is going to happen to me?

Suddenly things were changing for the disciples; their whole way of life was going to be disrupted. And there is nothing more stressful than this; nothing more calculated to cause anxiety. And it is this stress and anxiety our Lord addresses: “Do not let your hearts be troubles. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

3. Then again there are not only our anxieties and fears about the future, there are our ever present questionings and doubts.

There is something of the Thomas and the Philip in us all.
Like Thomas we are puzzled, and dubious.
Life is full of ponderables.
Life is enigmatic, a mystery, a riddle.
Life gives us more questions than answers.

Like Philip we cry out for some compelling proof: “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Walking by faith, and not by sight is all very well but…!

It is to this turmoil of inner dis-ease that Jesus speaks, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

Have we failed?
Are we anxious about the future?
Are we plagued with doubts, pestered with questions?
Our Lord says,
“Peace I leave with you;
My peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

It is for this we come again to the Lord's Table.
Not to satisfy some requirement of church membership.
Not to engage in some kind of religious mumbo jumbo.
But to re-enact yet once again
the events of that first Supper
when our Lord reassured His friends
that all their failure, fear and uncertainty,
is caught up in the mercy and kindness and goodness of a loving father
who spared not even His only Son for our sakes.
 

Amen.

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