The sorrow will be temporary

Sermon for Jubilate – Easter 3

1 Peter 2:11-20  +  John 16:16-23

Today we begin a five-week stretch in which we hear the Gospel, every week, from a portion of John’s Gospel, chapters 14-16. These chapters in John all recount some of Jesus’ final words to His disciples before His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, all spoken from that same upper room where He celebrated the Last Supper and instituted the Lord’s Supper with His disciples. The suppers are finished. And Jesus spends these precious last moments preparing His disciples, not just for the next three days, but for what life would be like after His ascension. The help of the Holy Spirit would be essential for His Church going forward, and He’ll talk about that help in the other texts we’ll consider in the coming weeks. But in today’s Gospel, Jesus is specifically preparing His disciples for a time of sorrow they’d have to endure, a “little while” of not seeing Him. But the main thing He emphasizes to them is that this time of sorrow would be temporary, and that their sorrow would, soon enough, be turned to joy—joy so great that it overshadows all the sorrow that came before. These words were spoken for their benefit, but they were recorded in Holy Scripture for our benefit. So let’s consider the text.

“A little while, and you will not see me. And again, a little while, and you will see me, because I am going to the Father.” They didn’t understand what He was talking about, and they were afraid to ask, so He goes on to explain, although still in a somewhat cryptic way. Jesus said to them, “You are asking one another about what I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see me. And again, a little while, and you will see me.’ Truly, truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.

There are two fulfillments of Jesus’ words here. The first little while, the first time of sorrow His disciples would experience, would be the next 72 hours or so. Within a few hours, Jesus would be taken away from them, arrested, tried, convicted, tortured, tried again, tortured again, convicted again, crucified, and buried. During that time, Jesus’ disciples would be the most sorrowful they had ever been or would ever be, because Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, was actually dead, and they thought it was permanent. If only they had believed these words Jesus had spoken to them! But they didn’t. And so they were sorrowful, while the unbelievers in Jerusalem rejoiced that they had finally gotten rid of that troublemaker, Jesus of Nazareth. The disciples would be sorrowful right up until the moment Jesus appeared to them again, in that same upper room, on Easter Sunday evening. Then they rejoiced when they saw the Lord, just as He said they would.

The second “little while” of sorrow wouldn’t be as little as 72 hours, but it also wouldn’t be as sorrowful, because for the rest of their lives, they knew and believed that Jesus was alive and reigning at the right hand of God. That’s what Jesus actually meant when He said that He was “going to the Father.” He was talking about His ascension, which would take place 40 days after He rose from the dead, His permanent removal of His visible presence from this earth—permanent in the sense that He wouldn’t be making any more appearances until the very end of the age, when He returns to this earth for judgment. For the rest of their earthly lives, Jesus’ disciples wouldn’t see Jesus again.

That time of separation from Jesus wouldn’t be pure sorrow, like it was when Jesus was dead and buried, but it would have its share of sorrow. And remember, we’re talking here only about the sorrow that Christians have because they’re Christians. All people have sorrow in this world because of sin and its consequences. But Jesus was talking about the kind of sorrow that affects Christians only, while the unbelieving world goes on rejoicing. What would Jesus’ disciples face in this world after He departed and went to the Father? They would face brutal opposition from their own countrymen and from the Gentiles. They would face torture and imprisonment, ridicule and mockery, slander and lies. Eventually they would witness the Roman empire turning against them and their fellow Christians with a vengeance. They would watch, or hear about, one another being put to death, one after the other, for carrying out the mission Jesus had given them. What’s more, while they lived, the apostles would witness even false brothers quickly start to introduce false teachings into the church and would have to spend a good deal of time stamping out the fires of heresy. There would be plenty of sorrow during that “little while” of the rest of their earthly lives.

But as soon as they closed their eyes in the sleep of Christian death, they would see Jesus again. They would be with the Lord in Paradise, just like the thief who died next to Jesus on the cross, where they still are today, nearly 2,000 years later. And their joy has known no end.

Jesus compared their sorrow to that of a woman in labor: “A woman has sorrow when she is giving birth, because her hour has come. But as soon as she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of her joy that a human being has been born into the world. So it is that you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

Now these words of Jesus apply just as much to the Christians living after the time of apostles, maybe even more, because we’ve never seen Jesus at all. All we’ve known is this time in between Jesus’ ascension and His eventual coming again. By the miracle of God’s Holy Spirit, working through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, we’ve come to believe in Jesus, without seeing Him. We believe that His words were faithfully recorded in the Bible, and that everything He said is true. We’ve been brought to repent of our sins, to trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins, and to hope that He is indeed preparing a place for us now in the heavenly mansions, so that when we close our eyes in the sleep of Christian death, or when He returns to judge the earth—whichever comes first—we will see Him and rejoice.

But that also means that our entire life on earth is a “little while” of sorrow. Not pure sorrow, because we know that Jesus is alive, that He has conquered death for us and will return for us. But there’s sorrow, nonetheless—real sorrow, because the world hates Jesus even more now than it did back then. It hates the truth and loves the lies that the devil spews. So the world rejoices that Jesus is unseen during this time. It means that the lies can grow and evil can fester in the world largely unchecked, and it has! The infection has almost completely ravaged mankind, as it did leading up to Noah’s flood, and that causes Christians no end of sorrow, just as righteous Lot, Abraham’s nephew, was tormented from day to day by seeing and hearing the lawless deeds of those around him in the wicked city of Sodom.

What are some of those sorrows? What things torment our souls?

First of all, we’re grieved by our own sinful flesh. The world rejoices to indulge in every sinful pleasure and activity, and to place one temptation after another before our eyes, but the Christian is grieved by temptation, and by his own sins, and yearns to be rid of them. But that sorrow is temporary, because this sinful flesh is temporary. One day we’ll shed it, and we’ll see Jesus, and that sorrow will be replaced with pure joy.

We’re grieved by the world’s largescale rejection of truth itself, and the embracing of lies. The lies are everywhere (and we point them out often precisely because they aren’t recognized as lies by the rest of the world): the lie of evolution and a billions-of-years-old universe has swept the world and practically consumed it as it shakes its fist at its Creator and claims, “You didn’t put this here! We don’t have to serve You!” There’s the lie of homosexuality as something natural and good. There’s the lie of transgenderism and the crushing pressure to accept it. There’s the lie that sex is free, and free of consequences, and free of responsibility. There’s the lie that the little child growing in her mother’s womb is a disposable clump of cells, and that preserving some degree of baby murder is a good thing. There are the lies of the politicians, the lies of the media, the lies of those who want to make Christianity into the greatest evil ever unleashed on this planet, because it robbed pagan cultures of their pagan worship practices and spread the “harmful” doctrine of Christ everywhere. Add to that the persecution of Christians, and the tyranny of corporations and of governments—including our own—which is now turned most acutely against Christians, and that will not change. Add to that all the false doctrines that have flooded the outward Christian Church, to the point that many Christians aren’t even Christians anymore, according to a Biblical definition. These things affect us. They affect our children. They’re painful, and they make it, sometimes, almost unbearable to live in this world of sorrow for the Christian.

But I think many women would say the same thing about the pains of childbirth. Painful, sorrowful, almost unbearable—until it’s over. And a child is born. And all the pain was worth it. Even forgotten, in a sense. That’s how it will be for believers, too. The sorrow is temporary. Temporary, not because eventually the Christian Church will succeed against the world and take over the world and convert the world to Christianity. No, temporary, because we will see Jesus again. You only have to live through the sorrow of this world for a several decades, at most. Then you’ll see Jesus. The world doesn’t have much longer to exist. Then all people will see Him. This sorrow will have an end, and knowing that, with the certainty of faith, will help you get through it.

What else will help you get through the sorrow? Well, you have the promise of the good Shepherd, that He is still with you, walking with you even through the valley of the shadow of death. You don’t see Him. But He tells you He’s there, and He doesn’t lie. And He promises that He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear.

What else? The ministers whom Christ sends you and the fellow Christians God places around you. These are gifts of God, like the doctors and nurses in the delivery room, to help you make it through the little while of sorrow.

What else? You have the Word of God, which is living and active, sheltering you and strengthening you with dependable truth. You have the promises attached to Holy Baptism. You have a special kind of presence of Jesus, His very body and blood, given to you in Holy Communion, so that He becomes a part of you, even now when you don’t see Him.

All these promises and gifts will enable you to push through the sorrow, to lean into it instead of running away from it. They will enable you to rejoice in the future that’s coming, just as a woman in labor, at least a part of her, can rejoice in the child who is about to be born. And these promises and gifts of God will even enable you to choose sorrow and suffering, when necessary. Because, yes, the Christian is often confronted with a choice, with many choices throughout one’s life. Do the right thing and face suffering for it, or do the wrong thing, or keep quiet, in order to avoid suffering and sorrow. St. Peter reminds us, in today’s Epistle, that doing the wrong thing to avoid suffering is simply not an option for the one who wants to be a follower of Christ Jesus.

So in those moments, whether long or short, when the sorrow begins to overwhelm you, remember Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead. Just as His time in the grave was temporary, so will your sorrow be. The Lord promises that, soon enough, you will see Him. And your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. Amen.