Dealing with That “Little While”
Fourth Sunday after Easter
St. Timothy Evangelical Lutheran Church
Lombard, IL
Pastor David Thompson
John 16: “In a little while, you will no longer see me; again in a little while, you will see me.” Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this he’s telling us: ‘In a little while, you will not see me; again in a little while, you will see me,’ and, ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” They said, “What is this he is saying, ‘In a little while’? We don’t know what he’s talking about.” Jesus knew they wanted to ask him, and so he said to them, “Are you asking one another about what I said, ‘In a little while, you will not see me; again in a little while, you will see me’? Truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you.
“In that day you will not ask me anything. Truly I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.“
I want you to think about the cross of Jesus as if you are standing on one of two sides of it: the disciples, when Jesus was speaking to them in our text, were standing on one side – what we could call the sorrowful side. But then there’s the post- or after-crucifixion side. Two sides of the same cross and two ways to view it, depending on which side of the cross you are standing. In between these two sides is what is called “a little while.”
So let’s talk about what is meant by “a little while”, for that was the question of the disciples.
It’s interesting that Jesus never clearly answers that question. What he does do is give the disciples what they need to know.
Nevertheless, here are several legitimate possibilities what “a little while” could mean. It could mean the period beginning with his crucifixion and ending with his resurrection where they see him and he them. I think, if anything, this is the best explanation. But it could also mean the period between his crucifixion and the time when Jesus and his blessing would come to believers through the work of the Holy Spirit, beginning on the day of Pentecost, about 43 days after his crucifixion. This is something that therefore continues even now, for Christ comes to us through the work of the Holy Spirit in his Word and Sacraments. Jesus comes to us now. But third, “a little while” explanation could refer to the period between his crucifixion and the time when Jesus comes in all his power and glory at the end of all things. For even now the Christian, though he has joy in a very real sense, still sorrows in this world that generally rejects Christ and presents us with all kinds of evil things due not only to the world, but our sinful flesh and the devil as well. But then there’s a fourth possibility. By “a little while”, Jesus may mean all three of these: the crucifixion up until his physical resurrection, up until the coming of the Holy Spirit beginning at Pentecost, and up until the final coming of Christ when we are saved once and for all from everything that causes sorrow.
But for now let’s think about it from the perspective of the disciples as they viewed the horror of what was about to happen to Jesus until the saw him after he rose from the dead. So, standing on that one side of the cross, before the resurrection, what did they see and experience? They would weep and mourn. They see this man, the one in whom they had put their hope, suffering and dying. And it made no sense; rather it was disastrous. We also see them engaging in other activities that are related to standing on that side of the cross: one betrays him, followed by committing suicide. Another lies and denies him, and then weeps bitterly. They all run away, hide, are scared. We see many weeping and even wailing: the women following Jesus on the way to the cross, Mary at the tomb before Jesus appears to her.
And it during this time, as Jesus says, during this “little while”, we see the world rejoicing: the Jewish leaders and other Jews who got their way, the soldiers who carried out the beating, the flogging, and the crucifixion. They were all experiencing and expressing a very sinful rejoicing at the horrible suffering and demise of the Christ, the Son of God. We see this especially at the foot of the cross as they pass by. If you have read the book or watched the movie “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, you will recall the Stone Table on which the Christ-figure, Aslan, was tied up, mocked, tortured, and then murdered by those who were ecstatic and rejoicing.
But, Jesus tells the disciples, their sorrow will turn to joy. It will not be replaced by joy, but turn into joy. And Jesus uses the painful and then happy event of a mother in childbirth. Her pain is real, and so is her joy: “But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world.” The pain was necessary. There could be no child and therefore no joy without the suffering (at least in this fallen world). Any mother would tell you that if she had to, she would go through all the suffering again just so she could have the joy of her child.
But because the disciples are standing on that one side of the cross, the painful side, the sorrowful side, they don’t know and they cannot experience and cannot grasp the joy to come, even though Jesus tells them it will.
And it does come. We read in John 20 after Jesus’ resurrection: “When it was evening on that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they feared the Jews. Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ Having said this, he showed them his hands and his side. So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” (vv. 19-20).
And then Jesus in our text gives them this great assurance: “Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you.” No one. His resurrection was there to stay.
Again, there are two sides of the cross on which to stand: the side of sorrow and pain, tragedy, where it is terrible, the worst thing possible. But when one stands on the other side of the cross, the cross does not disappear, the sorrow and the pain were a reality, but because of the cross, because of what it accomplished, the sorrow and pain are turned into joy, the tragedy becomes a victory, the terrible and worst thing possible becomes the most wonderful and the best event in the history of the world. As a mother says, “The pain was necessary in order to have the joy of this child. I would do it all over again.” So also when we stand on this other side of the cross, not only historically 2,000 years after the event, but also viewing it rightly, knowing and believing that all our sins, that the sinful flesh of Adam and everyone who has inherited his sinful flesh, were all heaped upon Jesus as he endured the cross and paid for them all, there is a joy and rejoicing for all who believe it. When we stand on this side of the cross, and believe what it really was all about, we realize it was the greatest victory ever and it becomes the greatest joy.
Where are your sins people? They are gone. And God himself knows that. For it was his only begotten Son who has removed them from you.
Make sure you see how this applies to you. You might say there are stages to the joy produced by the cross expressed in this text. There is the joy the disciples first had when they saw him with their own eyes over a period of 40 days after the resurrection, a joy we share also as we read their eyewitness accounts. There is the joy, beginning at Pentecost, that comes to believers when the Holy Spirit brings to us all the benefits of Christ’s work on the cross through Word and Sacrament, which is why you need to receive them often. They are our strength as we experience the sorrows and pains of this life, while our Old Adam, the world, and the devil plague us. And then there is the joy that comes when we will see Jesus with our own eyes, when we will be resurrected from the dead, and Jesus comes in all his glory and power and might to bring us to heaven, at which point the sorrows and pains of this life will all be a thing of the past, once and for all.
Tomorrow when you find yourself all alone and isolated, when your sin raises its ugly head and you sorrow over it, when things in life are not going well for you and maybe even terribly, when your future looks bleak, when you feel ignored or even betrayed by others, when doubts arise in your hearts, when you see your health continuing to fail, and whatever else might and does bring you sorrow, remember to stand on the one side of the cross, to look back at it and recall what it was all about: for you and your forgiveness, today and tomorrow. And then remember Jesus’ words: So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you. And finally, do not forget how he confirms the certainty of his words. He says, “Truly I tell you.” In the Greek it is “Truly, truly” or “Amen, Amen”. It is Jesus way of saying, “I give you a solemn and sure oath. Or as Luther puts it in the Small Catechism: “Amen means that we should be sure that these words are acceptable to our Father in heaven and are heard by him… ‘Amen, amen.’ That is, “Yes, yes, it shall be so.”
Amen, Amen.
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