The pattern of sorrow followed by joy

Sermon for Easter 3 – Jubilate

1 Peter 2:11-20  +  John 16:16-23

We spent Holy Week listening to the apostle John recount Jesus’ words and deeds during that climactic week of His earthly ministry. Today we begin a series of five Sundays in the Church’s lectionary in which the same apostle walks us through some of Jesus’ final instructions to His apostles in the upper room in Jerusalem, before they set out for the Garden of Gethsemane. Some of the things He said applied to the immediate future, but mostly, He was preparing them for the time after His ascension, for those crucial decades when these men would be laying the foundation of the Christian Church, carrying the Gospel to the world, beginning with Jerusalem. It would be a trying time for them, with plenty of sorrow, so He encouraged them with the words of our Gospel. But He was also leaving behind words for St. John to record for our benefit so that we have the encouragement we need, in our time, to face the sorrowful times ahead, so that we, too, may have a reason to rejoice.

“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 somewhat mysteriously. 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 is a fulfillment of these words in Jesus’ suffering and resurrection. Within a few hours, Jesus would be taken away from them, arrested, tried, tortured, convicted, crucified, and buried. During that time, Jesus’ disciples would be sorrowful. They would be sad, 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.

But on that evening, when Jesus talked about going away, He wasn’t mainly talking about going away to death and the grave. He was talking, as He said, about going away to His Father in heaven. He was talking about leaving the earth and ascending into heaven, after which they would never see Him again in this life. In a little while, that is, in 43 short days, they wouldn’t see Him anymore. And during that time, for the rest of their earthly lives, they would know many times of sorrow, as those men, one after the other, were persecuted and put to death for their preaching of Christ, and as they watched their brothers and sisters in Christ be tortured and killed for their faith, too. During that time, the world would rejoice, because the world would think it had gotten rid of Jesus for good, thought it would get away with doing as it pleased with the Christians who still live in the world.

And yet, Jesus says that, in a little while, His disciples would see Him, and that their sorrow would be turned into joy. The Easter fulfillment of that saying, when the sorrow of not seeing Jesus for a little while was replaced with great joy in seeing Him again, set a pattern for the future. It had another fulfillment, when they closed their eyes in the sleep of Christian death, and their souls were taken to Paradise, where they saw Jesus again after the sorrow of this life was done. And it will have another fulfillment, when Jesus returns at the end of the age, when all things reach their goal, and evil is destroyed, and death is swallowed up forever, when God will put an end to all sorrow and wipe away every tear from every believer’s eyes.

That’s three fulfillments of Jesus’ saying: at the time of Easter Sunday (for the original disciples), at the time of their earthly death, and at the end of the age which is still to come. But there is yet a fourth fulfillment of Jesus’ mysterious statement.

After Jesus’ ascension, the disciples didn’t see Him with their eyes, and they experienced sorrow, as we said. But by His Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit whom Jesus would pour out on His Church on the Day of Pentecost, Jesus enabled His apostles, and all of His believers, to “see Him” in another way, to see Him by faith, and to rejoice. By His Spirit, after they had experienced a little while of toil and sorrow—and near despair, as the apostle Paul describes it to the Corinthians—Jesus would fill them again with the assurance that their labor in the Lord was not in vain, that Christ really was reigning on His throne, that God was truly working all things together for their good. After they had experienced a little while of sorrow, Jesus would comfort them again by His Spirit, would testify to their hearts by His Spirit that they were beloved children of God, and so would enable them to rejoice.

We have an example of that in the apostles, after the Day of Pentecost. They were arrested by the Jews and beaten for preaching the Gospel of Christ. But as soon as they were released, it says that the apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. That’s not a manmade rejoicing. It’s the joy that Jesus gave them by His Spirit, teaching them a brand new way to view suffering—not as something to be feared, not as something to make them despair, but as something that is even cause for rejoicing.

The apostle Peter taught Christians the same lesson in chapter 1 of his first epistle: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As Christians, you’ve surely experienced this strange mixture of joy and sorrow. At times the sorrow of feeling abandoned by God is stronger, while at other times the joy of knowing for certain in your heart that the Lord Jesus, who died for you, also rose again, and reigns at the right hand of God, and will never leave you or forsake you—that joy is renewed and strengthened. It’s all part of the pattern that Jesus spoke of in today’s Gospel, a pattern of sorrow followed by joy.

But they are not equal. There is not an equal amount of joy for the sorrow you go through. No, Jesus makes it clear that the joy is far greater. It weighs far more than the sorrow does. He compares it to childbirth in our Gospel—and how appropriate for Mother’s Day! There’s plenty of sorrow, plenty of pain, but in the end, the joy of bringing a child into the world is far, far greater than the sorrow ever was, as all moms will attest.

The pain and sorrow are, of course, a result of sin. Your sins, other people’s sins, the sinful condition of a world that is cursed. But this is why Jesus came, came into our sorrow, came to share in our pain, came to bear our sins, so that, by paying for our sins on the cross, and by defeating death in His glorious resurrection, He might break the pattern of sorrow followed by only more sorrow, the pattern of sorrow followed by only death, and create a new pattern. A pattern of sorrow followed by joy—true joy, joy in seeing Him now by faith, joy in the Paradise that believers will enter when we die, and the final, perfect joy of the resurrection at the end of the age.

You don’t need to see Jesus now, with your eyes, in order to experience this joy. The Lord is risen, whether you see Him or not. The Lord is risen, whether you experience the joy of it or not. And His promises remain true, even when you’re going through a time of sorrow. 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. And as Peter also wrote, Though you have not seen Jesus, you love Him. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the goal of your faith—the salvation of your souls. May these words, inspired by the Spirit of God, sustain you in all the times of sorrow you must still face in this life, and may they also grant you the sure hope of the joy that will most certainly come. Amen.