“It is expedient for you that I go away”: why Jesus left

It is the last night. Jesus has washed his disciples’ feet, Judas has gone out into the darkness, and a heavy silence hangs over the table. He has told them that he is going away, and that where he is going they cannot follow yet. They have left everything for him: the boats, the tax booth, their homes. They understand nothing, and they are afraid. Then Jesus speaks the most bewildering sentence of the whole farewell:

“But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”

John 16:5-7

“It is expedient for you that I go away.” The original word means exactly that: it is for your good; you come out ahead. How can it be a gain to lose Jesus? Given the choice, almost all of us would ask to have him here, to see him, to hear his voice, to bring our sick to him. He says there is something better. In this article we will look at why he said it, what we gain by his departure, how it was fulfilled, and what that word teaches us when God takes away something we thought indispensable. At the end there is a prayer.

“Sorrow hath filled your heart”

Before explaining anything, Jesus names what they feel. He does not tell them they ought not to be sad. He sees the sorrow, acknowledges it, and speaks within it. The whole conversation of that night (John 13 to 17) is woven with the same tenderness: “Little children, yet a little while I am with you” (13:33); “Let not your heart be troubled” (14:1); “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (14:27). And he adds: “I tell you the truth.” What he is about to say is hard to believe, and he knows it. Read Jesus’ words to his apostles before he departed.

What “going away” means

When Jesus speaks of going away, he is not thinking only of the moment of ascending to heaven. He is speaking of the whole road that begins that night: the cross, the tomb, the resurrection and the return to the Father. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father” (John 16:28). What the disciples saw as a catastrophe—his death—was in fact the passage through which everything else was to open. Without that “going away” there would be no forgiveness, no resurrection, no Spirit.

First reason: “if I go not away, the Comforter will not come”

This is the reason Jesus himself gives. John had anticipated it in a brief comment: “the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). The Spirit is the fruit of Easter. The blood that cleanses had to be shed, so that God could dwell in cleansed hearts. And Peter, on the day of Pentecost, explains what the crowd is seeing:

“Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”

Acts 2:33

Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise from the Father and poured it out. The Holy Spirit is the first gift of the Christ who went away.

From being “with” us to being “in” us

Here is the gain. Jesus had put it in two prepositions: the Spirit of truth “dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17). While Jesus lived among his own in the flesh, he was in one place. If he was in Capernaum, he was not in Bethany; Martha reproached him for it: “if thou hadst been here.” He could sit at table with twelve, speak to one crowd, touch one sick person at a time. And he was beside them, not within them.

Through the Spirit, Christ is with all his own, everywhere, at once, and within. Paul calls it “this mystery…; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27), and says it of himself: “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). Jesus had promised it: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). That is why he could say, at the very moment of leaving: “lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). It is not a contradiction. It is another way of being present, and a closer one.

The proof lies in the disciples themselves. With Jesus at their side for three years, they remained slow to understand, argued about who was the greatest, and on the night of the arrest they all fled. After Pentecost, those same men spoke before the court that had condemned him, and the judges “marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). The inner presence did in them what the outer presence had not achieved.

What the Comforter does

The word Jesus uses is Paraclete: literally, “one called to someone’s side.” It is translated Comforter, Advocate, Helper, because he is all of these. And Jesus describes his work:

“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

John 16:12-14

He teaches and reminds: “he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). He guides into all truth. He glorifies Christ: he does not speak of himself; he takes what is Jesus’ and shows it to us. He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment (16:8). He bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:16). He prays in us when we do not know what to ask (8:26). And he does not leave: the Father gives him “that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). The disciples were losing a presence that could be taken from them, and receiving one that no one would take away. Read The Holy Spirit today and The Spirit of the Lord is upon you.

Second reason: “I go to prepare a place for you”

“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

John 14:2-3

Jesus does not go in order to be far away, but to open the way. He enters the Father’s house as the first of many brethren, and his going is the guarantee of ours. His departure has a direction: “I will come again, and receive you unto myself.” He goes away so that one day there will be no more farewells.

Third reason: he lives to intercede

The one who went away is not inactive. “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). “It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Romans 8:34). He entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24).

So we have two who pray for us: one in heaven, at the Father’s right hand, and one in our heart. When we fall, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). And that advocate has not forgotten what it is to be human: “we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15). He carries with him, in heaven, our humanity and its wounds. Read The throne of grace.

Fourth reason: “greater works than these shall he do”

“He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12). Not more spectacular: no one has done greater works than raising Lazarus. Greater in reach. Jesus preached in a small country for three years; through his Church, filled with the Spirit, the Gospel has reached every continent and thousands of languages. When he ascended, he “gave gifts unto men” (Ephesians 4:8), and the Church became “his body” (Ephesians 1:23): his hands, his feet and his voice in the world. One went away, and sent many.

Fifth reason: a deeper faith

To Thomas, who needed to see and touch, Jesus said: “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29). And to Mary Magdalene, who wanted to hold on to him in the garden as she had known him before: “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (20:17). He does not reject her; he offers her something greater than what she wanted to keep. For the first time he calls the disciples “brethren,” and his Father “your Father.” The relationship that was coming was higher than the one that was ending.

The sorrow that turns into joy

Jesus did not promise them they would not weep. He promised something else:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

John 16:20-22

He does not say the sorrow will be replaced by joy, but that it “shall be turned into joy,” like the pain of childbirth, which is not a useless pain: it is the very process that brings the child. And so it happened. When Jesus ascended to heaven, Luke tells of something that seems impossible at a farewell: “they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (Luke 24:52). They had understood. It was no longer the night of the supper.

When God takes away what you thought you needed

This word of Jesus also sheds light on our own losses, though it must be used with care. Not every loss is “expedient”: the Bible calls death an enemy, and Jesus wept at his friend’s tomb. It would be cruel to tell someone who is grieving that what happened is for their good.

But there is something we can learn. The disciples were convinced that the best thing that could happen to them was for everything to go on as it was. And God had something better that they could not imagine, and that could only come through the very thing they feared. Sometimes God withdraws a support from us—a season, a place, a way of feeling his presence that used to comfort us—not to leave us with less, but to give himself in a deeper way. Those who have walked long with God tell of times when they stopped “feeling” him, and that in that dryness they learned truly to believe. It is like the father who lets go of the hand of a child learning to walk: he has not gone; he is one step further on, with open arms.

In such moments what Jesus said to Peter that same night holds good: “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter” (John 13:7). Read Where was God when this happened to me? and God, never let me go.

“I will not leave you comfortless”

This is how Jesus sums up his promise: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:18). He came in the resurrection. He came at Pentecost. He comes every time two or three gather in his name. And he will come in a way everyone will see: “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). Between his going and his return we live: not abandoned, but indwelt.

How to live this word today

1. Receive the Comforter. What Jesus gained by his departure is for you. Ask: “Come, Holy Spirit.”
2. Do not envy those who saw him. You have what they did not yet have that night: Christ within.
3. Go to your Advocate. When you fall, do not hide: someone is speaking for you before the Father.
4. Be his body. Today Jesus comforts, visits and proclaims through his own. There are hands he has only if you lend them to him.
5. Look to where he is. “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1).
6. Entrust your farewells to him. What fills you with sorrow today is in the hands of one who knows how to turn it into joy.
7. Wait for his return. The story does not end with an absence.

Frequently asked questions

Would it not have been better for Jesus to stay on earth? He says no, and gives the reason: his presence through the Spirit is universal, inward and permanent, and by his going he opened the Father’s house to us.

Where is Jesus now? At the right hand of the Father, with his glorified humanity, interceding for us; and, by his Spirit, with his Church and in every believer.

Does the Holy Spirit replace Jesus? No. He does not take his place: he makes him present. His work is to glorify Christ and unite us to him.

What does “Comforter” mean? It translates the Greek word Paraclete, “one called alongside”: defender, helper, the one who encourages and consoles.

Why do I not feel that presence? The promise does not rest on what we feel. The Spirit dwells in whoever belongs to Christ on the dry days too, and often works most when we notice it least. Read How to learn to pray.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, I too would have wanted to hold on to you. I find it hard to believe that it is better not to see you, and there are days when I envy those who walked with you through Galilee. Forgive my little faith. You told the truth: it was for our good. You went away by the road of the cross so that I might have forgiveness; you ascended to the Father to prepare a place for me; and you did not leave me an orphan. Come, Holy Spirit, promised Comforter, and make real in me what Jesus gained: that he may be not only at my side, but within me. Remind me of his words when I forget them. Pray in me when I do not know how. And to you, Lord, who live to intercede, I entrust my farewells: what I have lost, what I fear to lose, what I do not understand. Turn my sorrow into joy, as you promised. And come back soon. Until that day, stay with me always. Amen.