JUST before his Passion, Jesus tells his disciples, “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father”. Really? Rejoice?

The Christian theology of dying has gone through changes over the centuries, not all of them for the better. We are more squeamish than we used to be about talking of death, or saying that someone has died. Instead, we may refer to their “passing away”, or simply “passing”. When talking to fellow Christians, I sometimes find myself using the old phrase, “gathered to glory” (drawn from 2 Corinthians 3.18). It affirms the traditional view that death is a gateway to life, while sidestepping the dreaded D-word. If people are truly reluctant to speak of “death” and “dying”, perhaps that is a sensitivity that we Christians should make allowances for.

I am glad that we have let go of an early Christian “take” on death. Basil of Caesarea (a fourth-century bishop) wrote to a father whose son had died, saying that he wept at the news. But he goes on to remark that, when he “looked carefully at our human nature”, he “apologised to the Lord” for the grief he had initially expressed.

Augustine, writing at roughly the same time, describes a similar response when his mother, Monica, died. He suppressed his tears, he tells us, although “the struggle to do this was so great that its effect on me was dreadful.” He behaved this way because he was “convinced that it was not right to mark the death with tearful lament and cries of sorrow”.

So I wonder how Jesus expected his disciples to feel when he told them that his time with them on earth was coming to an end (a brutal end, too, as it turned out). The fact that he insists “Do not let your hearts be troubled” confirms that he anticipated their struggling with fear and grief. In this Gospel passage, Jesus reiterates that encouragement: “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid”.

Yet, if Jesus knows that their hearts are going to be troubled, and that they will be afraid, why does he tell them that they ought to be rejoicing? It may be good Christian logic, but it does not seem, at first glance, to be very pastoral, or kind, or constructive.

Insight can come from imagining ourselves as part of the scene in John 14: that tense encounter, loaded with intense emotion. I picture Jesus surrounded by his anxious friends, who are seeking reassurance. I see how he is packing their final moments together with as much teaching as he can, before the moment of separation.

This reveals to me that there is no guilt-tripping the disciples into concealing their emotions. Jesus is not making them feel ashamed of those emotions, as though by failing to suppress them they have also failed at keeping faith with God the Father. He fulfils his main objective — reassuring them — by showing that he himself is not afraid of what is to happen. He does not wish it to be otherwise. And he wants what happens to confirm their faith: “I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.”

This way, the disciples’ fear and anxiety find a degree of solace, of reassurance. As can our own. One of the worst things about seeing the sufferings of those we love is wanting to change their circumstances; to make things be otherwise for them, yet being powerless to help. At times like these, our own needs are not uppermost in our minds. If we can know that there is nothing our loved one would wish to be different, nothing they would change even if they could, that is a powerful consolation amid the inevitable sorrows of separation.

Jesus does not forbid us to feel grief, or express it. He does not criticise those who weep and mourn (John 11.33, 35). Once, Mary and Jesus both wept at the tomb of Lazarus. But soon (John 20.11-15) another Mary will weep beside another tomb, and the one she takes to be the gardener will dry her tears with his voice, by calling out her name. When that same voice calls our loved ones, or calls us, sorrow and joy simply walk hand in hand awhile, that is all.