I had the most joyous thought. I mean, I am grinning from ear to ear. I woke up this morning and as my daughter cuddled with me, I was encouraging her to wake up and get going. She said to me, “but you’re leaving in a few days and you’ll be gone for a whole week!”
My reply made a thought turn in my head that has reverberated throughout my whole morning. I said, “Yes, but I go to prepare the house for you.”
Christ says the same thing to the disciples. He says in John 14:2 “In my Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be.”
Do you see? Do you understand? I can see it so clearly. Christ went with JOY to the Cross because he knew he was going to Heaven to make a home for his family. He was going to go make it perfect for them, ready to move in and with all the things they like, and didn’t know they liked. It says in Hebrews 12:2 “Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God.” He went to the most horrible execution that could be devised in the minds of men WITH JOY!
I go to prepare the house the way the kids and Jim want it. I will paint Sarah’s room, because she wants it pink. I go to buy some new furniture, so that we will have a place to sit. I go to order the house in preparation of my family coming and I am having help, too.
Can’t you just see, in your imagination, Christ pointing to a wall and telling the angels that that is not where it’s supposed to be and they need to move it three feet over because the new owner needs it that way?
My heart sings with the understanding of how Christ could leave this world, knowing he was going to the next. He was going ahead and he knew it! He was filled with joy at the prospect of getting the house ready for his family.
Yes, I am filled with sadness that I am leaving my friends, the places I have been around for three years, my home here in Germany. Look at it from my eyes this morning: I am going to make the house ready!
Ok, so that is a literal house, what about the other “houses”? Where else does this apply? Well, everywhere!!! Get up in the morning, preparing your day, make it in your head as if you are preparing a place for your family, your co-workers, your friends.
We all have chores we must do, so do them as if your family was coming home to them. Get up in the morning excited to sweep and mop and clean because you are preparing a place for your family to come home to. Make dinner as if it is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, even if it’s only sandwiches or meatloaf.
Go with joy to prepare a home and understand where He stood when He looked at the Cross, not looking at the Cross, but seeing the mansion near His Father, ready for His Family.
What Joy!
