A Commencement Address for Anxious Disciples

Jesus says, Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me. The word troubled means distressed. It means to be in turmoil. It means to be crippled by anxiety. And keep in mind, by the way, you might mark it in your Bible this way, Jesus is not giving suggestions here. These are all commands in the original language. You can literally translate it this way. Stop letting your hearts be troubled.

He knew they were. Keep on believing in Me. Imagine sitting in a commencement ceremony, but instead of receiving a diploma, you're hearing Christ prepare you for a life of faith and service. That's exactly what happened in Luke 22 7-14 as Jesus gathered his disciples for their final moments together before the crucifixion. This is their graduation into a new stage of ministry. Are you battling fear or uncertainty? Let Christ's words calm your hearts and prepare you for the journey ahead.

Keep listening to hear an encouraging lesson from Luke's Gospel. The term commencement is a term that referred originally to leaving one stage of life and leaving it for a new chapter or a new career. Commencement exercises date back to the Middle Ages around the 12th century where graduation speeches were all in Latin, very formal, dignified ceremonies.

I did read, by the way, this past week that the commencement speaker for Duke University was comedian Jerry Seinfeld. It's a long way from Latin unless yada, yada, yada means something in Latin. It is a Hebrew noun, by the way. Yada means knowledge. Maybe there was a connection.

I doubt it, but that's what the word means. Commencement exercise includes additional attire. The graduation gowns go all the way back to the robes worn by the monks of the medieval period. They were the professors.

You may remember the name of one monk by the name of Martin Luther who was converted while teaching through the book of Romans to his university students. They wore those heavy robes every day, not to be formal but to stay warm. They're in those cathedral institutions. They also wore hats for warmth as well. By the 16th century, the graduates began wearing caps. They were called mortar boards.

In fact, they were designed as flat squares to mimic the mortar board of a mason who used it to hold the mortar as he built with bricks. The graduation cap was intentionally designed to signify that knowledge had been built into the minds of these graduates one course at a time. In fact, that word course was a bricklayer's term as well. Going back to the Middle Ages, we talk today about taking a course in world history or a course in geometry.

The word course was a bricklayer's term for that horizontal row of bricks, one layer built upon another until the project was completed. So the students have taken all their courses one upon the other until they have completed their studies and are prepared for commencement. I couldn't help but think of this season as I arrived here in this narrative where the Lord is calling the disciples to the upper room. They're going to have a final meal before the crucifixion, although they don't know that yet.

But it's been three and a half years of university training, so to speak. The disciples are nearly ready to leave this stage of life and enter a new career. If you think about it, within 48 hours, Jesus will be in the tomb. And then less than eight weeks later, you're going to have this miraculous creation of the New Testament church, and these men almost overnight are going to be leaders in the church. So this upper room in many respects is like a commencement exercise for these men. And the Lord is going to deliver a commencement address of incredible significance.

I want you to turn where Luke begins recording this event. We're now in chapter 22 if you're new to our study. We've arrived at verse 7. Luke chapter 22 and verse 7. Then came the day of unleavened bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare the Passover for us that we may eat it. Keep in mind the Passover season, as we learned in our last session, included the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

These are interchangeable terms. It will go on for a week or so. And Jesus is telling only Peter and John to go and prepare that meal. Now that's going to involve getting a lamb. They're going to go stand in one of three very long lines leading up to priests who will then catch the blood of the lamb in a gold or silver basin and sprinkle it at the base of the altar. This signified the delivery of the Jewish people who'd sprinkled the blood of the lamb on their doorposts back in Egypt just before being freed from slavery. Now after doing that, Peter and John would have gone to the marketplace, purchased special vegetables. They would carry the lamb to this location and start roasting it on a spit.

They would have bought herbs and they would have created a special relish or sauce to dip their bread in as well as other elements in this very special meal. Now there's obviously an element of secrecy here. Jesus is only telling Peter and John to do this. They're the only ones who will know, effectively know, the address. And then later that night, Jesus will come with the other disciples. More than likely, and I'm guessing, but I would imagine the secrecy is because Judas is still among them.

He's already conspiring. If Jesus had let it be known where they're having this private meal, Judas could have informed the Sanhedrin. They would have taken advantage of this private setting to arrest Jesus and then none of this would have taken place.

Everything that Jesus was going to deliver in his commencement address, so to speak, would have been interrupted. Now you notice that Peter and John really aren't even given an address in case perhaps they're overheard. The Lord gives them a secret sign, verse 9. They said to him, Jesus, where will you have us? Prepare it.

Where do we go? And he said to them, behold, when you've entered the city, Jerusalem, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. This is the sign.

He's still not giving them an address. By the way, this man's going to be easy to spot because it was the role of women to typically carry water in pitchers, balancing them on their heads, not the men. So this man is going to stand out in the crowd. It'll be obvious that jar of water is the secret giveaway. Verse 10, follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished.

Prepare it there. Now this anonymous man's house, like many others in this day, would have been built with a large upper room. It could have been accessed with a stairway inside and also outside. That way they could rent that room and people could enter from the outside and that disturbed the family. And of course this allowed families then to earn additional income by renting out that upstairs room.

All that to say, Airbnbs are not a new idea. What's going on back here? Now tradition names this as the home of Mark, John Mark. He's the young man who will eventually write the gospel of Mark.

The owner of this home would have been Mark's father who remains anonymous. But he and the Lord evidently arranged this earlier without anybody knowing. And again, for the record, the name of this faithful disciple is never given to us here.

And I love the way Ralph Davis in his commentary put it, this unspoken contrast that's taking place. He wrote, you have Judas, one of the premier disciples, saying, I have a price for Jesus. And you have this anonymous disciple saying, I have a place for Jesus. Which is it for you today?

Are you selling him out or inviting him in? Well, Peter and John follow the Lord's directions to the tea. Verse 13 tells us, and they went and found it just as he had told them. And they prepared the Passover. When the hour came, he reclined at table and the apostles with him.

And by the way, before we go any further, this is another way of implying that Jesus is in absolute control here. He's not panicking. He knows he's going to die the next day. He doesn't look like a frightened victim though, does he?

Reclining with his friends. He's in perfect control of his destiny. He's not caught in some cruel drama, some unfortunate rabbi that, you know, wasn't believed. Yeah, Satan was at work, no doubt, but Jesus was never done in by Satan. Jesus is running this operation.

He's in control, down to the details of this meal, the address he's going to deliver, and every aspect in this upper room is planned. Now, at this point in the narrative, Luke offers 24 verses of what Jesus says, and John's Gospel gives us four chapters. Now, what I want to do is pull out some of the highlights and go to John's account. We're not going to cover all four chapters. It's taken us long enough to get through to Luke, so I can't do that. But I want to at least go to John 14 for a few moments today and narrow our focus of what John includes that Luke does not. If I could entitle as you're turning the Lord's commencement address, at least at this point, it would be something like how to overcome or how to uproot anxiety in your heart. How to uproot anxiety in your heart.

Now, John writes in chapter 14 and verse 1, Jesus says to his disciples, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. I remember reading the Sunday comics in the newspaper years ago. Anybody remember the newspaper?

I don't really miss it, but I miss that comic section in the middle. One of my favorites was that great theologian, Charlie Brown, who on one occasion announced to his little friends, he was discouraged, and he announced to his little friends this, I have a new philosophy in life. From now on, I am only going to dread one day at a time. Well, it's actually pretty easy to get to that place in life, isn't it? Keep in mind that Jesus might not have been panicking in the upper room, but his disciples will. The wheels are already wobbling. They're going to come off their own plans and ambition. Anxiety is going to begin nipping at their heels, working its way into their hearts. Jesus effectively gives them four truths to remember. They're going to forget them the next day.

It'll come back to them. In fact, John will write them down in narrative form. Here's the first truth to remember that has the power to uproot anxiety in their hearts and yours. Truth number one, Jesus Christ is completely trustworthy. Here's verse one again. Jesus says, let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me. The word troubled means distressed. It means to be in turmoil.

It means to be crippled by anxiety. Keep in mind, by the way, you might mark it in your Bible this way, Jesus is not giving suggestions here. These are all commands in the original language.

You could literally translate it this way. Stop letting your hearts be troubled. He knew they were. He knows when ours are. Stop letting your hearts be troubled, exclamation point. If you believe in God, you could translate it, keep on believing in me, exclamation point. Jesus knows his crucifixion is just around the corner.

It's as if he's saying to them, keep trusting me, even though you're not going to understand what's going to be happening to me. When you might wonder, keep believing. The truth is we all struggle when we look around, don't we?

It's easy for anxious thoughts to dominate our hearts and minds, anxious over some medical diagnosis or procedure, anxious over the potential of losing a job, anxious over a child that's perhaps running from God, anxious over a marriage that seems to be on the verge of collapsing, anxious about debt or financial needs, anxious about some change. You're facing a commencement. You're going to leave one stage and things are changing. You're going to enter a new career, a new chapter. Then you add to all that what's going on around you, the chaos of our culture and the immorality of the majority. Let me tell you, it's easy to start quoting Charlie Brown. I'm just going to dread one day at a time.

What do you do? Well, here's the compelling advice of the Lord who is hours away from the cross. Keep preaching to yourself the truth of the gospel that Jesus Christ is trustworthy. Here's the second truth. Number two, your home in heaven is a promised reality. Again, Jesus says in verse two, in My Father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? I've prepared a place for you, He says, a place we know as heaven. If you talk to people about heaven, you're going to get a variety of impressions, a lot of ideas, and a lot of it is confusing and not necessarily encouraging. I love the honesty of one five-year-old girl who was asked, what is heaven like? And she said, well, I think heaven is going to be the happiest part of my dead life. It doesn't sound very exciting, does it?

Now, the King James Version translates this verse, in My Father's house are many what? Mansions. Now, that sounds a little more exciting, but it sparked a lot of imagination.

And when you think about it, it's actually discouraging. It kind of falls into that category of what kind of house am I going to live in if I behave? I remember when I was a teenager hearing the prevailing opinion from a preacher who was preaching away, and he was preaching that your good deeds were translated into building supplies that God was going to use to build your mansion. I remember thinking, man, I'm going to live in an outhouse. I won't even have a door.

Better learn to camp out. No, this word in the original language is probably translated, properly translated, rooms, or you could probably translate it dwellings. See, the truth is every Christian has a room, a dwelling place. Jesus isn't saying that, you know, if you're a good Christian, your house is a block away.

If you're a bad Christian, you're not even in the same county. No, we are all inside the Father's house. Now, this would have been immediately understood by the Lord's audience because in that generation when a son married his bride, they added another wing to the Father's house. When another son married, they added another wing.

Eventually, the original dwelling would sprawl into a set of dwellings that would enclose a courtyard in the middle. We are going to have a place of residence under the same roof because we are the bride of Christ. The son's going to take us to his Father's house. We're going to be in the immediate presence of the Lord forever. Now, here's a third truth to remember. Number three, your future is guaranteed.

It's guaranteed permanently. Again, verse three, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be there, you may be off. So you see, we're not just invited to a place. We're invited to a person. I'm going to be there.

I'm going to get you and you're going to be with me. This is a guarantee whether your faith is weak or strong, whether it's little or great, whether you've been a Christian for many years or you've just begun following him. You're on your way home. Death is merely a hand that opens the doorway into heaven.

Now, here's one more truth to remember that will uproot anxiety. Truth number four, Jesus Christ is your personal guide home. He's your personal guide. He says in verse four, and you know the way to where I am going. And Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?

Don't you love Thomas? He's the only kid in class who raises his hand and asks the question everybody else needed. The answer is, well, wait a second. We don't know how to get to wherever you're going. In fact, we don't know where you're going. So if we don't know where you're going, how do we get there? Great question.

The truth is we're all as bad off as Thomas. We need directions. It reminded me many years ago of hearing Billy Graham tell the story of when he was a young preacher arriving in a small town for the first time. He wanted to mail a letter, and he stopped a young boy on the street and asked him for directions to the post office. And after the boy gave him directions, Billy Graham thanked him and then said, listen, if you'll come to church this evening, I'll be telling everyone how to get to heaven. The boy thought for a second and then said, no thanks, mister.

You don't even know how to get to the post office. Thomas is essentially saying you're going to have to give us some directions here to heaven. Listen to Jesus' profound answer, verse 6. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one, you could render that not anyone, comes to the Father except through me. Now, imagine you're traveling. Your GPS goes down. Your phone dies.

You forgot your charger. You're going to have to stop and get directions, so you pull up to that little, that little country gas station, and you go inside. And the attendant knows where you're trying to get to, and he says, well, if you go down two blocks and turn left and go three miles and turn right and go to the second stoplight and turn left, and you know you're going to get lost again. But what if instead of saying any of that, he said to you, you know, I'm going to close up shop in about ten minutes.

Why don't you hang around, and I'll take you there. Well, that'd be altogether different, wouldn't it? See, in this case, he doesn't show you the way. He becomes the way. That's what Jesus is saying here. Jesus isn't telling Thomas and the other disciples that He will show them the way.

He's saying He is the way Himself there. So, do you have an anxious heart? Do you have unanswered questions, fears, doubts? Of course you do.

We all do. And even after their university training here, the apostles are anxious about the future. This is God's Word to them and to you and me today.

We're not home yet. It might not be a very smooth voyage for you right now. God never promised that. He promised a safe landing in the harbor of heaven. One day, Jesus will call you to Himself. He'll come and get you, as it were, either at the rapture or if you die before then.

And the point here is if Jesus can guide you to heaven, He can guide you here on earth. What will that final commencement look like? That moment when you leave this earthly chapter and you begin a new heavenly career? I wonder if we'll hear the ringing sound of a chorus of bagpipe players playing Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I'm found.

Was blind but now I see. Or maybe as another songwriter imagined it, just think of stepping on shore and finding it heaven. Of taking a hand and finding it God's. Of breathing new air and finding it celestial.

Of waking up in glory and finding it home. He will guide you home one day. He will guide you through life today. That's His word.

And He always keeps His word. That was Stephen Davey with today's message, a commencement address for anxious disciples. If you haven't already, sign up for Friends of Wisdom. It's free and you'll receive weekly emails from Stephen filled with encouragement, Bible insights, and answers to questions people like you are asking. You'll also receive a free resource every month to help you grow in your faith. Signing up is simple. Just visit wisdomonline.org forward slash friends.

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