In the King James version of John 14, Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Many people have read that and thought, “Sweet. I’m gonna get me a mansion. I’ll be living good then, after I’m dead, in heaven.”

Somehow, I’m thinking that Jesus wasn’t thinking about heaven being a place where everyone gets their own mansion. In fact, the word probably should have been translated as dwelling place or room. As I read through these sentences about Jesus going and Jesus coming, there are a couple images that come to mind, neither of which has much to do with getting a mansion.

The first is this: the idea of going to prepare a place is exactly what happened before supper that night. A couple guys went and prepared the place. There was going to be a special, intimate, between friends dinner and someone had to get it ready. When it was ready, they went. And then the host played servant.

The second is this: There is a story that in first-century Jewish culture, after the couple was engaged (betrothed), the guy went home and started working on a room, an addition to the family home. He did his best work. He was making a place for his bride. When it was ready – when his dad said it was ready – he went to get her, with great fanfare, sometimes in the middle of the night.

The heart of the story wasn’t the cool room. The heart of the story was the caring groom.

Jesus wasn’t talking about some abstract distant place. He was looking his closest friends in the eye and saying. “I’m leaving, I’ll get things ready, I’ll come back.”

When people get all excited about how heaven will be, they miss thinking about who heaven will be.