Into the Dark (John 14:1-14)
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (Jn 14:1–5)Where Are You Going?
At the Last Supper, Jesus said something that left his disciples confused: “Where I am going, you cannot come.” (John 13:33). Peter and Thomas both asked the same question—Where are you going? They wanted to follow, but didn’t understand that Jesus was talking about his arrest, suffering, and death.
John’s Gospel is written for a later generation of Christians trying to make sense of what it means to follow Jesus in a dark and confusing time.
The Promise of “Many Rooms”
Jesus comforts his disciples with a picture they would understand: “My Father’s house has many rooms… I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2). In their culture, a groom would leave to build a new room onto his father’s house before returning to bring his bride home. The waiting bride kept her lamp ready, not knowing when he would arrive.
Jesus uses this image to say that he is going ahead to make space for us. But he is not talking about escaping to heaven someday. He is describing what he is about to do through the cross. He is going into the darkness of human suffering to prepare a new kind of dwelling place between God and humanity. He is building a home where light and life can break into the world’s chaos once again.
A New Creation
John’s Gospel begins with echoes of Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word… and the light shines in the darkness.” (John 1:1–5). The cross continues that creation story. Just as God once formed life and light in the midst of the deep, Jesus enters the deepest darkness—suffering, injustice, and death—and creates space for new life there.
When we look at the world’s pain—war, oppression, genocide—it can feel like darkness is winning. Yet the story of Jesus insists that God does not retreat from these places. God enters them. Christ descends into the hells of this world to bring life from the ground again. As the Apostles’ Creed says, “He descended to the dead.” That line is not about geography, but solidarity. It means that wherever there is despair, Christ is present.
The Way Forward
When Thomas says, “We don’t know the way,” Jesus answers, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:5–6). In Hebrew thought, “the way” (דֶּרֶךְ, derek) referred to walking in the commands of God—the Torah. To walk in the way was to live as humanity was meant to live: with God, in love, peace, and mercy. Jesus embodies that way. He is the living Word, showing us what God’s life looks like among us.
So when the disciples ask, “Where are you going?” Jesus’ answer is: into the world’s pain. As his followers, we sometimes must follow him into the darkness, because that is where resurrection begins. The place God is preparing for us is not an escape from the world but a new creation within it.
The early church understood this. They proclaimed that Jesus is God’s message in flesh, that love, peace, and generosity are the way forward. Even when that way leads through a cross, life will grow again.
Jesus has gone ahead of us, preparing the ground where light can break through. And when the powers of this world have exhausted their rage, God will raise life from the soil once more.
Questions for Reflection:
What does it mean for Jesus to “prepare a place” for us here and now?
Where do you see light breaking into darkness in your own life?
How might following “the way of Jesus” reshape how you respond to injustice or suffering?
What does it mean to believe that God meets us in pain rather than rescuing us from it?
How can the church embody the promise that new life will grow, even from the cross?