Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled

The disciples had reason to be troubled. In the past hour they had heard that one of them was a betrayer, that their leader was leaving, and that their boldest member would deny him before dawn. Into that room, Jesus speaks. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.

It is a command, which means troubled hearts are not simply weather that happens to us. Something can be done. But the command is immediately followed by reasons, because Jesus does not tell people to calm down without giving them ground to stand on. There is room in his Father's house. He is going to prepare a place. He will come back and take them to be with him. He is the way there, and whoever has seen him has seen the Father.

Philip asks to be shown the Father, and there is a note of weariness in Jesus' reply. Have I been with you so long, and still you do not know me? It is not a rebuke so much as an appeal. Everything Philip wanted to see, he had been looking at across a table for three years. The Father was not hidden behind Jesus. He was visible in him.

The one idea here is that the cure for a troubled heart is not the absence of trouble but the presence of a trustworthy person. Jesus does not deny the disciples' situation or promise that the next days will be easy. They will not be. He gives them himself, and he gives them a future that he is personally arranging.

On a Sunday, this is a good passage to carry into worship. Whatever is troubling you, and there is likely something, the instruction is not to pretend it is not there but to set it next to what is true about Jesus. He has gone ahead. He is coming back. He is the way. He has shown you the Father. A heart that keeps looking at those four things will find that trouble, while still present, no longer has the room to itself.