" It was a dark and stormy night " Do you recognize it? Most of us think of Snoopy sitting on top of his doghouse typing his novel. Those words were actually first written back in 1830 by a guy named Edward George Bulward Litton. He was quite an author, and fairly well received, but today that little phrase — which is part of a long, complicated sentence — is shorthand for bad writing: overwrought, a little over the top.

But today I want to tell you about a night that is well described as " It was a dark and stormy night " This was one of the darkest nights in all of history. I am speaking of the night before Jesus died. It was the night of the Last Supper. It was the night when Judas left the table to betray Jesus, when Jesus went to Gethsemane to pray. His disciples fell asleep on him, and as he prayed, his agony with God was so great — " Isn't there another way for this to happen? " — that he sweat drops of blood. It was a dark night because when that time ended, there came soldiers and the betrayer's kiss. And after that, going into the wee hours, were mock trials at which Jesus was accused falsely and condemned. It was a dark and stormy night.

One of the things I noticed as I read about this night from the Gospel of John was that some points, as hard as this might seem to be true, are parallel to some of our experiences.

Look at John 13, verse John 13:30: " As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night. " John is a marvelous writer, and he doesn't drop a phrase like, " and it was night, " without having lots of meaning in it. We are to sense there is more here than the hour of the day. We face times when it's night, when it seems that evil really is going to win. Evil is going to prevail. The darkness will settle and never lift.

The Christian mystic, St. John of the Cross, spoke of the dark night of the soul, times when it seems that God abandons even the most devout person's heart and leaves him there behind a locked door. Those are dark nights when you feel like not even God is listening any longer. Beyond that, though, we live in a world that sometimes is so heavy with darkness, we can hardly bear it.

I have a friend at the bagel shop. He told me one day he mostly just reads the sports page. He can't bear to read the rest. He told me, " I don't want to read any more stories about suffering children. " It's a dark world, and in such a world as that we sometimes feel like refugees. Nowhere to go, always dark, the future cloudy, gray, and shadowy. Not unlike what those men must have felt that night.

And then look at verse John 13:33. Jesus says to his disciples, " My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now, where I am going, you cannot come. " We face times when we feel utterly alone. Now, these were men who believed in God. I don't suppose there was ever a moment, even in the hours that would pass after this, when they didn't know that God was still in his heaven. But there is a kind of loneliness that sets in sometimes, when it feels for all the world like we are left in an utterly solitary place, and no one is there. It might be when the dearest on earth is laid in a tomb, and it'll never be the same. It might be some time of failure, or when you've moved to a strange place. But there are times that come, even when there's people all around, when we feel like they must have felt that night. Utterly alone. When it seems like even Jesus says, " I am leaving you now, and where I am going, you can't come. " Those nights we feel like orphans.

And then look at verse John 13:37. Peter asks, " Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. " Jesus answered, " Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times. " There are times in life when we find out we are really failures at what matters most. Nothing mattered so much to Peter that night as Jesus and trying to stay true to him. He could not imagine that he would ever walk away from Jesus, that he would ever deny him. And I don't suppose he would have if the temptation had been right in front of his face, a soldier with a sword. But he got bushwhacked, he got ambushed, and he found himself a failure. He did deny Jesus, three times, on cue. He was a failure at the things that mattered most in life. Have you ever felt like that?

Maybe it was the time you carried your little box of personal belongings out of your office for the last time in disgrace. Maybe it was the time you watched your child walk into the worst mess of her young life. Maybe it was the time you took your wedding ring off and dropped it in a drawer, and you felt like a failure at the most important things in life. I think Peter felt like that that night. Do you see why I say it really was a dark and stormy night?

On those nights, we feel like refugees, orphans, hopeless failures, prodigals who can't remember how to get home. When you read that, it is especially surprising to read what comes next. You see here in chapter John 13 this dark, heavy, hopeless, failing-filled night, and the next words are Jesus' words. Right after he told Peter of his soon-to-come betrayal, he says, " Do not let your hearts be troubled. " Do not let your hearts be troubled. " You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it weren't so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come back and take you to be with me, that you also will be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. "

Thomas messes up the mood big-time when he says, " Uh, Lord. We don't even know where you are going. So, how can we know the way? " And Jesus says, " I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. "

" Don't worry, " Jesus says. " Trust me. I will bring you home. I will bring you home. " When you feel like an orphan. When you feel like a refugee, a failure, this is what Jesus wants to say to you: " Don't worry. Trust me. I will bring you home. "

In these verses he makes three promises, and I bring this to you on Easter Sunday because these promises are possible only because Jesus rose from the dead. These things wouldn't happen if we just tried to believe and think good thoughts. These are possible because Jesus passed through death and into life. He can make these promises to us.

You can see them in those verses. John 14, verse John 14:2, says, " I am going to prepare a place for you. " That's one of them. The second one is the next verse. " I'll come back and take you to be with me. " The next one is in verse John 14:6: " I am the way and the truth and the life. " Three promises. And I'd like us to look at those, because these are wonderful promises. This passage of Scripture has been read at every funeral I remember ever attending, but it is not just for funerals. It's for anybody, especially in a dark and stormy night.

About a year ago I spent the most miserable night of my travel career. Have you had one of those? The absolute worst night of my travel career was supposed to be a one hour flight from Minneapolis to Midway, hop in the car in the lot, drive home, and be home in time to tuck Andy into bed. A piece of cake.

It was a dark and stormy night in Chicago. We waited and we waited. We took off. We flew around Dubuque. We started to run out of gas. We flew back to Minneapolis. We waited some more. Canceled? No, we'll go. We got on the plane. We came into Chicago, and the clouds and the buffeting were shaking the plane. We scoot under the storm and skid to a halt.

I think, Great, we've made it. We go get our stuff. It is 12:30 at night. We had started at 6:30. We step out. It is raining cats and dogs, and there are people everywhere whose planes have been messed up. And my car is in the outlying lot, and I have to get on the one shuttle.

I stood in the rain for an hour, and it was cold. When I finally got on that shuttle, we were like a bunch of wet rats. We get off, and I trudge through the rain again to my little car, in the dark, out in the boondocks. It wouldn't start. When it finally did start, it was almost worse than not starting. It would chug and thud and kill, and I would get it going again. My heart's pumping, and in spite of the cold I am sweating bullets.

Finally it goes. I decided to make a run for it. The first light, it kills again. Oh, no. Starts up. I keep going. Finally, at about O'Hare it's running well.

It's 2:30 in the morning. I start to relax. I'm warming up, but I can't keep my eyes open. I roll down the window. Rain and radio. I'm almost home, thinking, Is this ever going to end?

I see the sign for my exit. I see a line of cars along the side. In the next instant I hit the same pothole they hit. Whump! My tire falls apart. I made it off the expressway by the grace of God. It was almost more than I could handle. I can feel this thing limping. At 3:00 in the morning I called my wife. " I can go no further. Come and get me. "

Do you know what I thought of over and over that night, the one thing I thought of a thousand times that night? I just want to be home! Will I ever, ever get home?

Sometimes life is like that. Will I ever get home? So Jesus says, no matter how dark the night you can trust him to prepare a home for you.

People are always looking for a home. You are trying to make the place where you live, whether it's a dorm or a beautiful house, home. But I don't think there is anywhere in this world that will ever feel completely like home should feel. I don't think there is such a place. Everywhere we go, no matter how many pictures we hang on the wall, or how many years we live in a place, or how many memories we pack into those walls, it's always just a room with a view. It's just never really home. There is always something we miss.

And that's what Jesus is speaking to when he says, " I am going to prepare a place for you. " He tells us that this will be a home with our Father. He says, " In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. "

Home, first of all, is to be with our Heavenly Father. It's where our Father is now. He's not just the Almighty God; he's our Father. Home is where Father is. Now, in this verse, don't get hung up on trying to figure out the architecture. Is this like a condo? Will I have a palace? Mansions? That's not the point. These words were not said by Jesus to help us picture heaven.

These words were given to us by Jesus for people who think, I'm not sure there will be a place for me there. I'm not sure someone who feels like such an orphan, such a refugee, such a failure — I'm not sure there will be a place for me there. Jesus says, " Don't worry. Trust me. I am preparing a home for you with the Father. "

I thought a lot about this phrase. " I am going there to prepare a place for you. " I thought, if you will pardon my simple mind, What's to prepare? I mean, do we have to put mints on the pillows, or what? Are the angels still doing drywall? What has to be prepared? " I go to prepare a place. " Why can't we go now? Isn't it ready?

Two thoughts: First, it is the " going " of Jesus that prepared the place for us. This weekend we celebrate the weekend of Jesus' going. It is an awful, wonderful story. This journey of Jesus prepared a place for us, his suffering of that dark and stormy night.

It included the awful pain of the next day when Jesus was crucified, and the greatest pain — beyond imagination — when the Son of God found himself looking at the back of his Father. Forsaken. He was going there. When he died and gave up his spirit and cried, " It is finished! " He was going there. When he was laid in the tomb, he was going there. When he arose on Easter morning, when new life filled his body, a new kind of body, when the stone rolled away and Jesus stepped forth, he was going there. And later, when he went to be with his Father to sit at the right hand of God, he was going there. It was the process, the path, that he prepared for us. Because as Christians, when we ask Jesus to be our Way, our Savior, it is as though we grab his coat tails. The words the Bible uses is " we are in him " as he goes. So, his very going there is preparing the place for us.

But I think there is another sense. I admit I am speculating a little here, but I think you'll see where I come from. Heaven cannot be improved on. Nothing in the presence of God can be improved upon. But I think in the generations and eras that have passed since Jesus went away, heaven is being enhanced.

There was a wonderful prince, wealthy beyond belief, who fell in love with a beggar girl. She didn't know who he was, at first, didn't understand how rich he was. If he had taken her home, she would have been agog. But, for his love for her he wanted to do more, so he enhanced his palace until he could bring her home to see it as his bride.

I think it is like that. Jesus, our prince and our groom, continues right now to make heaven more and more beautiful and wonderful for us. He adds more wonder to the angels' anthems as they see his grace accumulating to people day in and day out. Every time someone else is touched by the grace of God, some other sinner finds hope and salvation, their wonder is a little greater. He increases the infinite joy of heaven with each soul that is saved. There is singing in the presence of the angels over one, so, every time, the beauty of heaven is in some way enhanced over all these years.

The praises of heaven are enhanced by constantly adding to the present and future choruses of heaven. Voices from every tribe and language and people and nation. Heaven really is becoming, if possible, even more beautiful, so that when we finally meet our groom at the wedding supper of the Lamb, he will spread out his arms toward all of the wonders of heaven and say, " I have prepared all this for you. "

So, on those dark and stormy nights, when you feel like a refugee and an orphan and a failure, Jesus says, " Trust me. Just trust me. I'm preparing a home for you. "

There is another promise. He says, no matter how dark the night, you can trust Jesus to be at home with us. Not just to prepare us a home, but to be at home with us.

One summer when I was in college, I was in a singing group, and we toured all summer, so I didn't get to go home. We only had three weeks from the time the tour ended until school started. Since I was here and my home was in South Dakota and it was expensive, I just decided to stay and chill out for three weeks and have some alone time. Well, I spent one night by myself, literally the only person in Johnson Hall on Trinity's campus. There were no people. There were no effects of people. There was nothing. Just me and that big old place.

It took one night and I said, " I've got to get out of here. I'll go crazy. I'm going home. " I don't remember how I did it, if I charged a plane ticket to my dad or what, but my parents didn't know I was coming. I thought, This will be so cool. I'm going to surprise them. I got to my home town in South Dakota, went to my house, and walked in because the door was never locked.

I walked in, and there was nobody home, and nobody seemed to be coming home. I called the neighbor and they said, " Your folks are on vacation. " And I still felt homesick. I was home, but I still felt homesick.

We think the wonder of heaven would be to be with our loved ones who have gone before. We think just to be in a place where it's peaceful, where there's no trouble, where there's no ill health — that would be heaven. And all those things are true, but the thing that makes heaven home is not our loved ones there. It is Jesus. It is Jesus.

It's because our view is yet so small and our faith is so little and our understanding of our riches in Jesus so minute that we don't understand it. The best thing about heaven is Jesus. If it is great to be with loved ones, how much greater must it be to be with Jesus? He will make it home. He says, " I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am. " There isn't any purer definition of home than being with Jesus. Augustine prayed, " O, God, you have formed us for yourself, and our souls can know no rest until they rest in you. " Not even God could make a place feel like home if Jesus weren't there.

There are lots of people who want to go to heaven, who think they'll go to heaven, who don't care a lick about being forever with Jesus. Those folks don't understand that even golden streets and pearly gates would be hell if Jesus weren't there. Jesus longs to have us with him. It's not just that we get to be with him. He longs to have us with him. The picture the Bible uses is that he thinks of us as a groom and a bride. He can't wait to bring us home.

I talked to Joe this week. Joe and Angie are engaged, but Joe had to leave. He is spending three months in the boondocks of Canada planting trees, in Slave Lake. It is well named. Angie's here and he's there and never the twain shall meet. I said, " Joe, I bet that's really hard to think about being apart that long. "

He said, " I always look forward to big days with anticipation. I am already thinking about how great it's going to be the day I get to be back with Angie. "

That's what Jesus is saying. " I am preparing a place for you. " You can't read here in these words the excitement and the anticipation and the love with which Jesus speaks. He can't wait to have us come to his home that he has prepared for us.

So, quiet your hearts in the dark nights with the assurance that Christ is coming back for you. Does it feel to you sometimes as though Christ has abandoned you to your troubles? It's not true. Those troubles are building in us the bearing and the beauty of a bride. Right now the Holy Spirit is preparing us for that place, for Christ is preparing that place for us.

I just couldn't get through this sermon without thinking of one of my favorite songs by Michael Card. He gives these words to Jesus, " When time reaches fullness and I move my hand, I will bring you home. Home to your own place, beautiful land, I will bring you home. I will bring you home. I will bring you home. From this fearful fallen place, I will bring you home. "

There's one more promise here. He's preparing a place. He'll be there with us. No matter how dark the night, you can trust Christ to be the way, to be the way home. Jesus says in verse John 14:4, " You know the way to the place I am going. " It appeared Jesus assumed a little too much, doesn't it? Thomas says, " We don't know where you are going, let alone how to find the way. "

We had just moved to a new community and didn't know our way around. We asked someone how to get somewhere, and this, I quote, is what he said: " Do you know where the Dairy Queen used to be? Turn just before you get there. "

That's what Thomas thought he was hearing. You know the way. What? " We've got a disconnect, Jesus. I don't know the way. I don't even know where you are going. I don't get the directions. I don't understand how this works. I don't know how to get to heaven. "

The assumption today among most people we know is that heaven is just the other side of here. You fall asleep and you wake up, and it's just the other side of here. There's nowhere to go. It's what happens after you die. I read this survey recently that said, if I remember right, that over 90 percent of Americans think they'll go to heaven. They're not sure about you, but they're sure they're going to heaven. Everybody thinks they're going to heaven. We just think that the other side of here is there.

The Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that there is a way to heaven, and you have to know the way. Jesus says furthermore that the way is narrow, and few find it. Not 90 percent.

Thomas says, " We don't know the way. " Thomas was expecting directions, wasn't he? As if I asked someone, " Can you tell me how to find heaven? " You'd almost expect them to say, " Go up and take a right. " What you would hear is " Be good. Be an honest citizen. Go to church, maybe. Pray. " We'd get directions.

Jesus says, " No, you don't need directions. I am the way. " You don't need signposts. You don't need to crawl up steps on your knees. You don't have to jump through any kind of hoops. You don't even have to be good. In fact, being good doesn't get you there. Jesus says, " There's just one way, " and he says, " I'm it. Don't ask for directions. " Meet Jesus. Cling to Jesus. He says, " I am the way and the truth and the life. " No one comes to the Father, no one gets home, except through Jesus.

That is not popular in our culture. People do not believe that. They'll let you believe it, but they can't believe that's true for everyone. I didn't make it up. You can read it with your own eyes. It's in the Bible. Jesus said it. " I am the way and there isn't any other way. " People find some philosophy of life — stoicism or optimism or whatever — but there is always a hole in the middle of any way of thinking about life for a person who doesn't know Jesus.

Truth, first of all, isn't a system of thinking. Truth is a Person. And to know Jesus makes all else make sense, gives it a place, fits it together. He's the Life. The Bible teaches us and we know it to be true, right to the core of what we are, that we are a dead people. We are walking dead people. We are mortal. That's the expression. Mortal has the idea of death in it. The very word means " death. " We are walking dead people. It's our whole race. All human beings are dead.

When Jesus died on the cross, he put death to death. He endured hell on the cross. There isn't any more hell than the cross was. To suffer for the sins of all, to have God turn his back — he took it all. He died all that death could do. And then when he rose, he didn't just start breathing again. He rose as a new kind of person, a person who could elevate right to the throne of God.

He was the firstborn of a new race of people, of those who put their faith in him. Not people who were born of blood from him, but whose faith puts us with him. We become life people, not death people. For us who know Christ, not because we're good or smart or live in the right place, but because we have put our faith in Jesus, we pass with him from death to life, and we become a new race of people. The Bible says, " If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come. " We are people who know the way and have a home. We'll go there to be with Jesus. " The way and the truth and the life. " Jesus says, " No one comes to the Father except through me. "

When Alice was in Wonderland, she asked the Cheshire Cat for directions. " Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? " she said.

" Well, it depends a good deal on where you want to go, " said the Cheshire Cat.

" I don't much care where, " said Alice.

" Well, then, it doesn't matter which way you go, " said the cat.

If you don't care which way you are headed, it doesn't matter which way you go. But if you want to go home, the way is Jesus.

It is a dark and stormy night sometimes. Dark and lonely, full of failure, so Jesus says to us, amazingly, " Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust in me. I will bring you home. " Trust Jesus. He is the way home.

" Tell me, exactly how do I do this? " There are two steps. Step one: Turn your heart toward home. That's one way to put it. What I mean is repent of sin. Say, " I don't want to go the direction I have been going. I'll turn. " Repentance is a word that means " to turn. " To turn from not just particular sins that you know you have been committing, but from running my own life, from going my own way. To say, " I want to go home. I'm sorry I have gone all these other places. Now I want to go home. "

The second step: Hold on to Jesus. He is the way. Ask Jesus to bring you home. Do it that way; say, " Jesus, will you take me home? " And if you ask him and trust that he'd do what you ask, it shall be. You shall be bonded to him in that journey home. " I am not depending, Jesus, on my goodness or my smarts or my family or the church I go to. I am depending on you. "

As long as we live here in these dark and stormy nights, one of the beautiful things is that Jesus promises here, right now, to be our home. We can feel home when we are with Jesus. Right now. When the time comes to pass over, he will bring us home, and we'll be with him forever. Easter is our promise that it is true.

Kenton C. Anderson is dean and associate professor of applied theology at ACTS Seminaries (Northwest) in Langley, British Columbia. He is author of several books, including Choosing to Preach (Zondervan). John Koessler is professor and chair of the Pastoral Studies Department at Moody Bible Institute. He is author and editor of numerous books, including The Moody Handbook of Preaching (Moody).