His coming will indeed close our wilderness journey. It will heal all the breaches among the people of God; it will gather together the divided and scattered saints. It will end the sorrows, the trials, and the labors of His people. It will take us out of a scene of darkness and death and usher us into a home of light and life and love. All this it will do and more, but, above all else, it will bring us into the company of Jesus. As He can say, “I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (v. 3).

What would heaven be without Jesus? To be in a scene where there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, where all is holiness and perfection, will be blessed indeed, but if Jesus were not there the heart would still remain unsatisfied. The supreme happiness of His coming is that we shall be with Him. He has been with us in this dark world of death, and we shall be with Him in life’s eternal home, the Father’s house.

This, the highest aspect of His coming, discloses to us the secret longings of His heart. We learn, in these words of the Lord, the deep desire of His heart to have His people with Himself for the joy and satisfaction of His own heart. He wants our company. He is the object of our faith in heaven; we are the objects of His love on earth. If our treasure is in heaven, His treasure is on earth. Christ Himself has gone, but the heart of Christ is down here and, as one has truly said, “If His heart is here, He Himself is not far off.”

What comfort for troubled hearts fills these verses! Christ in the glory our unfailing resource, a home in the glory that awaits us; and a Man in the glory that wants us!