“In My Father’s house [oikia] there are many mansions [monai]. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2)
Nowhere else is there a more splendid description of what happens when we pass through this life beyond death and into the everlasting life that awaits us. Here is the most precious view of heaven in the Bible. On the other side of death are mansions for us all. Mansion, you say, and for me? Do we really need mansions? Another interesting thought is that the Father’s abode is a house. Our loving Lord appears to be saying that the house is a residence where the whole family is at home, and the Holy Trinity is present throughout. No rooms are off limits, and yet we each have a mansion of our own. Space to be ourselves and still one of the family of God.
Space is something personal. Visit Peterhof on a boat ride from St. Petersburg, the city built by Emperor Peter the Great, and you will be shown his special retreat, the miniscule palace Monplaisir. The huge six-and-a-half-foot tsar preferred confined space to the grandiose palaces in his empire.
I recall being with Mother Alexandra at her monastery recounting her childhood life as princess of Romania. She said that she and her sister were forbidden to play hide and seek in their enormous palace, because they might not be found for days among the many rooms everywhere.
Here in our nation television visits to the homes of the “Rich and Famous” in California, Florida, Las Vegas and elsewhere cause some to drool and others to wretch. Yet for all the sprawl such mansions take up, the inhabitants are often troubled by laws that give beach rights to the less fortunate.
We all begin in the tight fit of our mothers’ wombs, and when we leave that for the outside world, we are confined for our safety to enclosed cribs. From there we graduate to playpens, rooms away from all others, and when we feel our parental home is too confining, we live in apartments and then houses of our own. Often they are considered mere starters, with not enough space for us if we can afford larger dwellings. And that isn’t the end. We feel we must have a get-away cabin, condo, or cottage somewhere. In time we grow smaller physically, struggle against the helplessness that comes with advanced age, and find ourselves in a nursing home or care facility. Inevitably, we die and reside for a time in a coffin.
What size is your mansion now and in the Kingdom? How much space is adequate for your comfort? The Lord of love doesn’t seem to judge us, at least by the beautiful offer above. He isn’t saying, “You spoiled, selfish Americans! You’re never satisfied with what My Father has provided. You yourselves neither know what you want nor what is best for you. If you need more space to be alone, be My guest. If it’s important to spend eternity apart from My sisters and brothers, well then, do so.” But will it come to our consciousnesses that our ancestors with larger families and smaller homes had happier lives than we? When we compare ourselves with other cultures on the earth we share, is it an advantage to live as we do, or like the Orientals, Europeans, Africans and all who take pleasure in being in company with others, eating among several generations of the family, and realizing that one’s soul expands in communion with others?