In the Gospel of John there is a curious verse: "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."
This verse is often used in funerals to give a comforting sense regarding the hereafter. It also raises strange imagery that somehow the hereafter is a big house with lots of rooms. And yet I do not think this is a traditional concept of heaven or the afterlife.
Maybe these verses are not some distant future, but a spiritual reality about now. As a kid on the farm in northwestern Penna, I grew up in a big, old farm house. It had lots of rooms and several were not used. Living room, parlor, dining room, storage rooms, attic, dirt floor basement, large closets, and more. Some felt lonely. Some were scary for a little boy. Some had the wonderful smell of fresh baked bread. Some had the grime, dirt and cow manure of the farm.
You know, whatever the room, God's peace, God's presence, God's love was in that room. My life, like yours, is divided into many "rooms." Marble Church, home, commuting, going through an endoscope, time with grandkids, listening to someone's story of grief and pain, and on and on.
And you know, in each of those rooms I find God's peace, God's presence, God's love. All of these rooms are clearly "in my Father's house." |