Daily Manna · Day 242 · August 30
Many Mansions
“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”
Which question is yours: whether there is a place there for the person you buried, or whether there is a place there for you?
Jesus says this in a borrowed upper room to men who are hours away from losing him, and the proof he offers is strange. If it were not so, I would have told you. He stakes it on his own truthfulness rather than on anything they could go and check. Then he moves past reassurance into work. I go to prepare a place for you. The word behind mansions simply means a dwelling, somewhere to remain; the house belongs to his Father, and he says the rooms are many.
To the first question, the answer is that the house is larger than your fear of it and the Son of God is arranging the rooms himself. To the second, the answer is harder and better. He was standing among men who would deny him before morning when he promised to prepare their place. He knew exactly what they were. He went anyway.
Father, I have counted the rooms and left myself out of them, and I have doubted there was one for the person I miss. You said many. You said prepare. I will take you at your word today, for them and for me. Amen.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 242 is Wherewith Shall I Come (Micah 6:8).