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John 14:1-14 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² 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? ³ 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. ⁴ And you know the way to the place where I am going.” ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves. ¹² Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

Acts 7:55-60 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁵⁵ But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶ “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” ⁵⁷ But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. ⁵⁸ Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him, and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹ While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died. 

What did we just hear from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles?

A young man stands on the edge of the city. His name is Saul. He is educated, devout, and convinced that he is acting rightly in the eyes of God. Around him, a crowd surges with loud voices, hardened hearts, and raised stones. In the center stands Stephen: calm, radiant, unarmed. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” And then the stones fly.

How many of us flashed back to Good Friday? How many of us flashed on present events in these United States of America? An angry mob. Another unjust death. The similarities are all too common. 

I do not say this to raise fear or division—I say it to point us toward hope. Because this story is not finished.

Now hold that scene from the Book of Acts alongside another from the Gospel of John.

Friends are gathered at a table. Jesus is speaking what we now call his Farewell Discourse.

The disciples are anxious, confused, unsettled. And into that moment, Jesus says: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”

In both of these scenes—the frightened disciples at the table, and the violent crowd around Stephen—the same question echoes: Where is God in all of this?

It is the same question communities were asking decades later when John’s Gospel was written: Where is Jesus? Why has he not returned? What do we hold onto now?

Into that uncertainty, Jesus speaks a promise: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places… I go to prepare a place for you.”

Thomas, ever honest, voices what many are thinking: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

And Jesus answers: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

These words were first spoken—and later written down—by communities under pressure. They were trying to hold onto something solid in a world that kept shifting. They were making a confession of trust in a moment of crisis: This is the path we will follow. This is the truth we will cling to. It is not merely belief. It is a way of life. A life that looks like Jesus. 

Which brings us back to Stephen. Because in John 14, Jesus makes a remarkable promise: “…the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…” Greater works than Jesus? How could that possibly be?

Look at Stephen. As the stones strike his body, he prays: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And then: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Those are not just echoes of Jesus. That is Jesus’ spirit continuing on in Stephen.

This is what “greater works” looks like—not bigger miracles, but wider embodiment. The life of Christ multiplied in human lives—enabling courage where there could be fear, forgiveness where there could be rage, and love where there could be hatred.

Stephen follows the Way—not as an idea, but as a lived reality.

But we must not romanticize this.

This is costly. Truth-tellers are still silenced. The innocent still suffer. Systems still crush the vulnerable. From Stephen’s day to ours, those who challenge injustice often pay a heavy price.

And who is in that crowd surrounding Stephen? Ordinary people. Religious people. People certain that God is on their side.

That is where we first met Saul. Watching. Approving. Perhaps even encouraging.

But Saul’s story does not end there. Because God refuses to give up on people like Saul. Saul—who stands at the edge of this violence—will one day be struck down on the road to Damascus. He will be transformed. The persecutor will become a preacher. Saul will become Paul, proclaimer of the very faith he once tried to destroy.

Do not lose hope in people. The lost can be found. The hardened can be changed. The ones who participate in harm may yet become agents of healing. Those wreaking havoc on our systems of justice and health care may yet have their hearts turned.

God is not finished with any of us.

And that brings us, finally, to Jesus’ promise: “I go to prepare a place for you.”

We often hear that as something only about the future—heaven, after death, someday.

But what if that dwelling place is not only where we are going—but what God is creating within us and among us?

What if heaven is not only ahead of us—but breaking into the present?

Because the promise is not just that we will go to God—but that God will come to us—and dwell with us. Dwell within us. 

The Spirit of truth, the Advocate, comes not to relocate us—but to inhabit us. To make us into dwelling places. 

To make us people who walk the Way. 

People who embody the life of Christ in the world—even when it is costly. 

Even when it echoes the fate of Stephen. 

Even when it begins, unexpectedly, with someone like Saul.

May it be so.

Amen

Rev. TJ Mack – May 3, 2026