201. Monday after Third Sunday after Easter.
Lord Jesus, teach us to know thee. Amen.
John 14, 1-6. Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
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“In my Father’s house are many mansions.” In other words, there is room enough in heaven for all the friends of Jesus; and each of them shall there receive his own special measure of glory. They shall all be gathered there; and all shall have perfect bliss, but shall not have the same measure of glory. The splendor with which we shall shine in heaven shall be greater or less according to the gifts which we have received of God, and the manner in which we have used them. Some have the brilliance of the diamond, others of the ruby, and still others of the emerald; but all fit beautifully together. There is no envy in heaven, and no discordant note is heard in the song of praise before the throne of the Lamb.
Whosoever believes in Jesus, and continues in faith unto the end, cannot be lost, but must and shall inherit salvation. For the heart of the believer clings to Jesus, and remains where he is; and thus Jesus takes the believer with himself to heaven. The Lord himself has gone through death and overcome it; but he did this for us. Himself is the life and the light which never can be quenched; and this he is for us who believe in him. “I am the way,” he says. He is our bridge from death to life. He has thrown himself into the awful gulf of damnation; and over him we are thus carried home to the Father’s house. “He is the living way, the great current on which the ship freighted with human lives is floated out into the sea of a blessed eternity.” “I am the truth and the life.” It is, therefore, not possible that any who is one with him in heart can be lost. He that has the Son has life already. No death can henceforth destroy him. And is not Jesus, in very truth, your life, your heart’s delight and desire, dear Christian friend? We know the way, then, and have the life; and we are certain that we shall be gathered into the mansions of glory. For “we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us understanding to know the true God; and we are in him, in his Son, Jesus Christ, who is the true God and eternal life.” — On the other hand, “he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1 John 5, 12).
We must, then, learn to regard and know the Lord Jesus as the one who always is and remains with us and in us, especially in the hour of death; nay, who is so near to us that he alone is in our heart. This I know when I fully and firmly believe in him as my Savior, who for me has gone through death to the Father, in order that he may receive me unto himself. When I have this faith I am on the right way which leads from this life to the next. For faith clings to Christ. Where he is it must be and remain also; and the stronger the faith is, the more secure do we walk along the way. To walk on the way simply means, then, to have a steadfast faith and to become all the time more fully assured of eternal life in Christ. When I continue in this faith to the end, and death then attacks and overcomes me, and my consciousness is lost, the journey has already been completed, I have reached the goal, and I begin the new life in the world to come.
— Martin Luther
Lord Jesus, help us to hold thee fast in faith, and not to know anything unto salvation save thee crucified. Amen.
Thou seest my feebleness;
Jesus, be thou my power,
My help and refuge in distress,
My fortress and my tower.
Myself I cannot save,
Myself I cannot keep;
But strength in thee I surely have,
Whose eyelids never sleep.