LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED

Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe on God, believe also on me.  In my Father's house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be.  John 14: 1-3.

                              I

Let not your heart be troubled God reminds,
Our life is hid with Jesus Christ on high.
So, brethren, let us shake the ties that bind
Us fast onto things that can’t satisfy.
Our tears and sufferings may drag us low,
And make us feel devoid of hope or song,
But Jesus left us here a while to go
Prepare the perfect home for which we long.
Let’s hold onto this hope, though comes the rain.
Our Savior’s hands will soon remove our tears.
The memories of our trials won’t remain,
Just joy and bliss through endless, endless, years.
So put on joy for trials will not stay,
And live for Christ until this blessed day.

© Rachel Svendsen 2014

                            II

"Let not your heart be troubled", Jesus told
The eleven as He girt them for their grief:
Knowing their faith in God He could unfold
That He would be their Object of belief.
He told them, "In the Father's house there are
Many abodes"; He would prepare a place
Distinctly ours, above the highest star,
Where we shall be before the Father's face.

"I go", He told them, and the going meant
The cross, the tomb, the garden, and the throne;
He came alone; but through the way He went
The Christ our Lord did not remain alone.

For, taken from the scene where we have grieved,
It is unto Himself we are received.

David C Brown

                               III

Always there comes this parting of the ways
The best is wrested from us, borne away,
No one is with us always, nothing stays,
Night swallows even the most perfect day.
Time makes a tragedy of human love,
We cleave forever to the one we choose
Only to find ‘forever’ in the grave.
We have just time enough to love and lose.

You know too well this trouble in our hearts
Your heart is troubled for us, feels it too,
You share with us in time that shears and parts
To draw us out of time and into you.
I go that you might come to where I am
Your word comes home to us and brings us home.

Malcolm Guite

I was interested to see these reactions in sonnets to John 14.  Links to the other writers are:
http://rachelsvendsen.com/2014/11/11/sonnet-john-141-6/
https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/let-not-your-hearts-be-troubled-a-new-sonnet/

I have received Rachel Svendsen's permission to post here, and assumed that of Malcolm Guite.