You Can’t Come

Text: John 13:31-35

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

          Today our lectionary Gospel reading gives a bit of a mystery to figure out before we can really get into what Jesus is saying to us. “When He had gone out, Jesus said,” Gone out from where? When? I’ve been at some churches where the pastor will give a brief overview of the lesson before reading the actual Scripture text. I tend to prefer to allow the Word to speak for itself and then exposit the text in the sermon, but today would have been a day where it would have been a little helpful to have just a tiny bit of context. I tend to think of you all as a fairly biblically literate group, but I don’t imagine you look at the reading on the back of the bulletin and see John 13 and immediately know when in the life of Jesus and the disciples this interaction is taking place. We need a little context. So here it is.

Jesus has just washed the disciples’ feet, indicated that one would betray Him, and they’ve eaten their last meal together. And now they’re on the road. It appears as though Jesus is walking and preaching. Not wanting to waste even a single moment of the final hours He has with His closest followers. And so, He teaches. “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” All this teaching about making sure it’s the right time for Him to be glorified. From the wedding at Cana where Jesus proclaims that His time has not yet come. To the various teachings the disciples don’t understand about Jesus’ humility and sacrifice becoming His true glory. It’s all coming to fruition now. They’ll see His time come and His glory fully manifested over the course of the coming hours. “If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him at once.”

The disciples walk and talk with Jesus. And I imagine they’re both excited and also a little bit frightened when Jesus says to them, “Little children, yet a little while I am with you.” Excited because they know that all this work…all this preparation…all this waiting…is coming to an end. And frightened because they’re still not entirely sure exactly how it will end.

But then Jesus drops a bombshell. Something none of them were likely expecting. “You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.” These are the fishermen who left their livelihoods to follow Jesus. The tax collector who turned from his lucrative business trusting that Jesus was leading him to something better. And all the others whose last three years have been spent following the One they thought they would always be with. And here He is saying, “You can’t come.” Even in the temporal context this has to be a devastating blow to the disciples. We want to follow you. We’ll go wherever it is you take us. We’ve got your back and we’re by your side.

          Hearing anyone tell us that we can’t come is likely going to be difficult to bear. I can vividly recall the conversations about weekend outings or parties in the hallways in high school, knowing that there was no invitation forthcoming. Or the birthday parties that you heard about after the fact and wondered, was my invitation misplaced. In retrospect all that is probably better than the 3^rd or 4^th grade birthday party where I was the only boy to show up in the midst of a dozen girls. Feeling left out can be an extremely tough pill to swallow.

And it had to be extremely difficult for the disciples because they’re being lumped in, thrown in the same category as the people they’ve been fighting against for years. “just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘where I am going you cannot come.” They have to wonder why their fate is the same as those who clearly don’t understand who Jesus is and what He’s come to do. And even if those disciples did in some way understand the eternal nature of Jesus’ statement, it sounds really harsh. “You can’t come.” Well, the truth is that the Jews, those disciples, me, you, none of us can come. Our sin separates us from God with such a divide that it’s impossible for us to cross. Just as God barred Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and placed a cherubim and flaming sword to guard the entrance, so great are the barriers to us going where Christ has now already gone.

Sin has etched this chasm between us and Him so deeply that we could not even think to step across it. Arrogance and lack of love for our neighbors continue to widen the gap. Disregard for the commands of the Lord and selfish ambition lock our feet down so firmly on our own side of the divide that nothing we could ever do would allow us to make headway in the direction of the place that our Lord sits enthroned on high.

There’s a beautiful illustration that I’ve seen a number of times that has two frames to it. In the first we stand on one side of a great canyon, looking out and across at Jesus on the other side. You can tell that it’s Jesus, because in some way that glory He spoke of in today’s text is emanating from Him. And, He’s standing beside His cross. The caption will always read something to the effect of, “How great a divide. How will we ever get across?” And then in the second frame you see that Jesus lays down that cross all the way across that great divide, creating a bridge connecting the two sides. Connecting sinner to Savior. Creating the way by which we’re reconciled to our loving God.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, this is a text that could use a little introduction for context. It’s also a text that could easily have been extended to include three more verses. Hear the Word from John 13:36-38. “Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.’  Peter said to him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’  Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.’”

And while those verses are a great reminder of the Holy Week drama playing out for Peter and the rest of the disciples, they’re also a great reminder to us as well. Even in our times of greatest faith and strength; the days when we will say, “I will lay down my life for you.” Those words that Amber and Caleb will speak in just a moment. Even in those times, we can know that ahead lie times when that faith and strength will feel far from us. When we will just as readily deny that we even know our Lord. When our words and actions will betray our ever-present reality of sin. It’s in those times when the canyon between us and Jesus seems so wide that we can remember with full conviction that the cross covers it all. He doesn’t pull it back and leave the divide uncrossable when we stray from Him. In fact, it’s then that He most wants us to see the path that He created through His suffering and death.

So, while Jesus says to the disciples, and to us, “You can’t come” now, He also says to Peter, and to us, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” What a beautiful promise that in this life we will struggle and fall, but with faith we will be with Him for all eternity. For by our own reason and strength

WE CAN’T COME, BUT THROUGH THE POWER OF JESUS’ GRACE AND MERCY HE SETS A PLACE AT THE TABLE FOR EACH OF HIS FOLLOWERS.

          And that truth then gives us the proper ears to hear the new commandment that He gives to us as we await His return to carry us home. A commandment that gives us direction in this life as we seek to know Him and to make Him known. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus