John 14:2-4 "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places..."

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going. (John 14:2-4)

Comment:

This is a passage from the final discourse in which the Gospel’s author has Jesus Christ trying to encompass the meaning and purpose of his ministry to his closest followers on the eve of his arrest and crucifixion. He is about to leave them physically, and he assures them that he will simply be moving on to another “dwelling place” (or “mansion” in some translations), another dimension of the vast Allness that is God. To their limited human minds, it may seem tragic and permanent, like death. But in spiritual truth, it’s always more like a relocation—a shifting of our energy into another part of the infinite energy that is the kingdom of God.

This is not the same as saying that there is a specific place called “heaven” to which we go (or not) after we die. We are eternal spiritual beings. We don’t die. And that which we call God is an energy of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. So there’s no specific place in which God is located, and there’s no place where God is not. So there’s no beginning or ending—only the eternal Now. The Allness of God expresses in infinite ways. We come from one “mansion” into this “mansion”—an experience of duality and limitation. And we go from here into other mansions of possibility. As we affirm weekly in our Prayer of Protection, “wherever we are, God Is!”

Further, because we are eternal beings, our love relationships are equally eternal. No love is ever lost. Those others with whom we feel a special loving bond are spiritual beings with whom we have shared and will continue to share often as our spiritual paths unfold beyond the artificial limits of one human lifetime.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed