Sometimes it seems that the spiritual life is not unlike an extended game of hide and seek.

Last week at the Eucharist we heard the familiar parables of lost sheep and caring shepherd, lost coin and determined housewife.

We were reminded that God will not rest til he has found each one of us and bought us safely home.

Our New Testament reading this evening, however, presents the search in a new light.

Now it is Jesus who promises to be elusive, and the Pharisees are after him.

‘I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.
You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.’

Do those words sound at all familiar. They come again, in a passage we hear rather more often, at the end of chapter 13:
Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me;
and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.”
Jesus even helpfully quotes himself.
The same words, but very different contexts indeed.
In chapter 7, tonight’s reading, Jesus is teaching in the Temple, so powerfully that his listeners are astonished. When they question how he learnt what he is sharing, Jesus tells them his teaching is from God. He then challenges them, asking why they are out for his blood...More dialogue, then the temple police are summoned to arrest him.
And then he says to the very people who he has accused of planning to kill him
‘I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.
You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.’

That seems only sensible, doesn’t it.

You really wouldn’t expect those who wanted to kill Jesus to be part of his resurrected, ascended life. They’ve made their choice. Of course they can’t, and won’t, come with Jesus...

But, can I ask you to think about the parallel verses, that we find later on.
Now Jesus is with a very different audience, at the Last Supper.
Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet as a sign of his love for them, and of his servanthood.
Jesus has predicted his betrayal and Judas has gone out into the night, as we later discover,
to fetch the soldiers and temple police to arrest Jesus.
And once it is just Jesus and the faithful 11 disciples, he speaks to them,
Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me;
and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.”

What are we to make of this? It feels harsh. Jesus telling his beloved friends that THEY cannot come with him either.
How can he say this same thing to two such pposite groups of people?

And what might it mean for us, you and me, as we strive to be disciples?

Where I am going, you cannot come.
The thing is, the story doesn’t stop there. And that’s where we find hope.

Because, as Jesus explains, just because they can’t come where he is going, doesn’t mean they can’t be there.
Listen: “ if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself,so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going...’ 

It’s not by our own efforts that we can make our way to heaven.

I will come again and will take you to myself…

The initiative is all on HIS side and he is tireless in seeking us out.

It doesn’t matter if we’re among those who love Jesus and long to follow him all the way through death and beyond, or whether we have more in commone with those who find his message so troubling they wish to silence him forever.

The message is the same...as I said to the Jews so now I say to you,

“Where I am going, you cannot come.”

You can’t come...but I will come and take you.

It doesn’t depend on our efforts or our attitudes. The work is his, and his alone.

This is not a message of exclusion- there’s room and to spare for all...but we need to know that we can’t get there on our own.

You can’t come to me, I have to come and get you.

I’ll come and get you even from the depths of hell...I will come and find you...friend or enemy...because, I have loved you with an everlasting love and nothing in life or death, nothing in all creation can separate us from that love.