Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1871
“If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father.” John 14:28.
THE loving Jesus saw a shade of sadness fall upon the faces of the 12 while He talked to them of His departure. Though He was, Himself, to die, with His usual self-forgetfulness He only thought of them and He desired to comfort them—to comfort them about the present sorrow of His departure. See how skillfully, how wisely He drew upon their love for their comfort. The most common and usual source of comfort is Christ’s love to us, but in this instance the most applicable and the most influential source of comfort was their love to Him. He said, therefore, to them, “If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father.” It was well and wisely spoken, for He touched them upon a point in which they were very tender—if anything could move them to comfort, it would be His appeal to their loyal love. He had appealed to that, before, when He said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments,” but now, in softer, sweeter, more tender tones, He seems to say, “If you love Me, cease your sorrow and begin to rejoice.”
The Lord may give us drink from that same spring. It is a lower spring compared with the upper spring of His own sweet love, but He may cause it to flow most preciously so that when we are not bold enough to drink of the higher stream, we may taste of this. If we are able to say, “You know all things, You know that I love You,” we may be cheered by that Truth of God. “So surely as you do love Me,” says Christ, “you will rejoice rather than sorrow because I said, I go unto My Father.” Oh, what a blessed Master we serve, who quotes our love, not to blame us for its feebleness, but to draw a happy inference from it! So much does He desire our peace, our restfulness in His own dear Self, that even the love we give to Him, He gives back to us and bids us find comfort in it!
Let that stand as a preface. And now I shall deal with the text by way of making some three or four observations upon it.
I. And the first is this—IT WILL BE MUCH FOR OUR COMFORT TO TRY TO SEE THINGS IN CHRIST’S LIGHT. Notice the expression, “If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father.”
Christ had told them that He was about to die. He had said in very plain language on a former occasion, “The Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him.” But now He looks at the matter in another light. His present view of it is, “I go unto the Father.” Their view of it was, “Jesus is to die.” His view of it was, “I go unto My Father.” Oh, how often our hearts would grow happy if we could but see things in Christ’s light! Let us try to do so.
For, here observe, that Christ sees through things. You and I look at them and we see Pilate, Herod, the judgement seat, the scourge, the Cross, the spear, the sepulcher—but Jesus looks through them and He sees the Father’s Throne and Himself exalted upon it. Could we not, sometimes, try to see affairs in Christ’s light by looking through them? Come, Brothers and Sisters, that present affliction which seems not to be joyous but grievous, nevertheless, afterwards yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness! Can you not look at the, “afterwards,” and thus discern the end as the Lord does? Your present estate is tossed about and troubled, for you are on a stormy sea, but you are being tossed towards the port and driven, even, by the storm, towards your desired haven! Can you not see through matters as Jesus did? Why dwell always on this life? Can you not see what it leads to? “The way may be rough, but it cannot be long.” And then comes an eternity of joy! Can you not spy this out? Your Lord did, for though His passage into Glory was infinitely rougher than yours—though He had to swim through seas of blood and breast the breakers of Hell, itself, in His death-pangs—yet He
looked beyond all and said, “I go unto the Father.” See things in Christ’s light! See the end as well as the beginning and the middle—and you will be comforted!
Do you not see, too, that the light in which Christ sees things is such that He notices the bearing of things? He says, in effect, “If you could see My death as I see it—as a going unto the Father—you would rejoice.” He sees the ultimate result and bearing of things. Oh, if we could always do the same and perceive what will come of our present sorrow! And if we just understood what it tends to and what God means to bring out of it all, then we should not so much see the fire as the pure ingot that comes forth of it! Then we should not so much see the plowing and the scattering of the seed to be buried beneath frost and snow, but we should hear the shouts of harvest and see the yellow sheaves gathered into the garner. Oh, to see Providences in Christ’s light!