“In this passage we clearly hear two wonderful promises of Jesus. And the promises of Jesus are the promises of God, and the promises of God are the promises of Jesus, for Jesus and God are one and the same.

Jesus makes two wonderful promises: 

(1) “I am going to prepare a living space for you, a mansion, a place for you for all eternity. Trust God. Trust me. That is what I am going to do for you.

(2) When the time is right, I will come again and take you to that place.” And Thomas questions: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, and how would we get there? Is heaven beyond the Milky Way? Or in some other galaxy? Lord, we have no idea of where heaven is and we don’t know how to get there.” And Jesus said, “Thomas, trust me. I am going to prepare a place for you and when the time is right, I will come and get you and take you to this place.” Two wonderful promises of God.

There is an incident out of my family history that helps me to understand this passage. The story comes from my mother so many years ago. I have revised this historical memory so that it serves the point of the sermon.

In the early 1900s, my Grandpa Petersen and his family was planning to immigrate from Denmark to the Promised Land of America. And my Grandpa Maurice made two wonderful promises to his wife, my grandmother, Elizabeth. “Elizabeth, I am going to America to build you and the four children, (my mother, Edith, was the oldest), a new home, a wonderful new living space in Houghton, Michigan.

I will take the ferry from our home in Randers, Aarhuse, Denmark over to Copenhagen, then the big ship from Copenhagen to Ellis Island, then I will walk through the scary lines at Ellis Island, and then take the train to Houghton, Michigan, and there in Houghton, Elizabeth, I will build you and the children a wonderful home. And when the time is right, I will come back and get you and the children and take you there.”

My Grandma said, “Maurice, you must come back for me and the children. We would never find our way to America. I/We couldn’t do that.” If you knew my Grandma Pete, this frail little lady who had twelve children, there was a certain frail quality to her voice, unlike the gruffness of my Grandpa Petersen. And Grandpa said: “You need to trust me, Elizabeth. I will go and build our home in America AND I will come back for you.” Grandma trusted.

And so Grandpa took the big journey to the Promised Land of America, taking the ferry to Copenhagen, the big ship to Ellis Island, he stood anxiously in the great halls of Ellis Island, and then took the train to Houghton. There, he built the family a lovely home. And, when the time was right, he went back for his wife and children who would have never found the way by themselves. He did what he promised.

Years later, my mother, while watching the PBS special about Ellis Island, was flooded with memories that she had forgotten but seeing the TV documentary on Ellis, it all came back:  the ferry ride, waving good-bye to HER grandma whom she would never see again, the ship to America,  the crowded hall of Ellis Island was so very frightening.

There was the train ride to Houghton, and then they saw their new home and how wonderful it was.  They couldn’t have done it without Grandpa.  He was to be trusted. He did what he said he was going to do. He came back and took them to the new Promised Land.

How would we ever find the way from earth to heaven? We need Jesus to prepare a future home for us. We also need Jesus to take us from this earth to eternity.

And so it is that Christ promises:  I have gone to prepare a living space for you in the Promised Land; it is a lovely place, a mansion, where there is no tears, no sorrow, no pain.  I am preparing a place for you.  And when the time is right, I will come again, and I will take you to myself, and I will take you to this living place. 
Just as my Grandfather was faithful to his promises, so our God is even more faithful to his promises.  Trust God.  Trust me, said Jesus.”

Edited with permission. To read more of Rev. Edward Markquart’s sermon.