Jubilate (3rd Sunday after Easter) + St. John 16:16-23a + April 17, 2016
Order of Holy Communion - Pg. 15
Hymn #204 Come Ye Faithful, Raise the StrainReadings
Collect for Jubilate, the 3rd Sunday after Easter
Almighty God, Who showest to them that be in error the light of Thy truth to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness, grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion that they may avoid those things that are contrary to their profession and to follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Sermon on the Holy Gospel
Grace
and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1) Jesus
says “A little while, and you will not
see me; and again, a little while, and you will se me, because I go to the
Father.” The disciples don’t understand Jesus’ word because without the
illumination of God the Holy Ghost, man’s reason and understanding can’t
understand Jesus’ word. It is as St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “the natural man does not receive
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he
know them, because they are
spiritually discerned." Yet the disciples, having been given faith
through Jesus’ preaching, desire to understand His Word. That’s part of what
faith does, it always wants to be hearing, and understanding, the word of Jesus
because faith lives upon no other thing than the word of Jesus. Christ’s word
is faith’s meat and drink indeed. But they are still afraid to ask Jesus. “Some of His disciples said among
themselves, ‘What is this that he says to us, ‘ a little while, and you will
not see me; and again a little while, and you will see me;’ and ‘because I got
to the Father?’” Like people in our own day, they don’t want to ask because
asking the question makes them appear, in their own mind, as if they are ignorant
or uninformed. Jesus knows they want to ask but are still afraid to ask. St.
John writes, “Now Jesus knew that they desired
to ask Him, and He said unto them, ‘Are you inquiring among yourselves
about what I said, ‘ A little while, and you will not see me,; and again a
little while and you will see me?”
Jesus loves honest questions. He is always the humble teacher to those
who approach Him humbly. This is the reason Jesus came into the world, to
reveal the will of God to men for their salvation.
2) So He explains, “Most
assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will
rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.”
When Christ says “a little while and you
will not see me,” Jesus is teaching them about His passion and death. Jesus
speaks these words on the night in which He was betrayed, just after He had
instituted Holy Communion, His means of grace for giving sinners the benefits
of the cross. With this one brief phrase, “a little while,” Jesus sums up His
suffering and death. For a little while you will not see me. I will be taken
from you. I will be bound by temple guards. I will be tried by Caiaphas and
Annas. I will be beaten by soldiers, bloodied by a whip of cords, and
bludgeoned by sinners. For a little while you will not see me because I will be
concealed in suffering. For a little while I will leave you so that I can, by
my innocent, bitter sufferings and death, atone for all of your sins and the
sins of the entire world. For a little while you will not see me because I will
be dead and buried, concealed in the grave, entombed in the sepulcher of Joseph
of Arimathea, beyond the eyes of the living. This short phrase, “a little
while,” encompasses all of Jesus suffering and death into it. Thi is the
“little while” in which His disciples would not see Him.
3) Once Jesus is taken from them, once Jesus removes Himself
from them, that is when “you will weep
and lament.” Peter literally goes out and weeps bitterly in repentance over
his great public sin, that three times he betrayed Christ before men. Each of
these disciples will lament the loss of their Lord. They will be sorrowful, for
all joy will be taken away from them, all gladness will be stolen away by grief
and fear. In John 20 we learn that on the night of the resurrection the
disciples hid themselves away, “the
doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews.”
They feared public shame, for they had publically been Jesus’ disciples. They
fears that the Jews who murdered Jesus would do the same to them, for Christ
had told them in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.” The disciples weep and lament, their cup is filled to the brim with
sorrow and despair because Jesus is gone from them. Jesus has been taken away
from them. And where Jesus is not, there is no joy. This was to be the
disciple’s trial, their suffering, their cross to bear, this “little while”
without their Lord. Not only would they weep and lament, but the world would
rejoice because they world hates Jesus. The world hates Christ’s Word. It hates
His gospel because the gospel offers the forgiveness of sins and the world is
perfectly fine with its sin, thank you very much. The world does not need
saving, it believes, nor does it want to call sin what it is, because the world
delights in contradicting God, calling evil good and calling that which God
calls good evil instead. This is also part of the disciples’ cross to bear. Not
only must their Lord be taken from them for “a little while,” but the world
will rejoice over their loss and laugh them to scorn for their faith in Christ.
4) But Jesus gives them hope, for Jesus never wants His
Christians, no matter how weak or infirmed, to be without hope. So He also
says, “your sorrow will be turned into
joy.” This is the other side of the coin “a little while.” Christ says that
He will leave them for a little while, but only a brief time. Then He will
return to them, fully alive, never to die again, having opened death’s prison
and been vindicated by God the Father as the only one who is righteous by His
own merit. Jesus promises to rise from the grave, for He is the Good Shepherd
who gives His life for the sheep. He says in John 10:18, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to
lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” The comfort Jesus offers
them in this Word is this: “I will be gone for a brief time. I will conceal
myself in suffering and death. I will be cloaked under shame and scorn. But
only for “a little while.” Then you will see me again, vivified, victorious,
and vindicated through my death and resurrection.” Jesus promises to return to
them and this will fill them with joy which “no one will take from you.” Joy is a fruit of Christ’s resurrection
that He bestows upon all who believe His resurrection and cling to it for their
salvation in their lives and in the hour of death.
5) To drive this great comfort and consolation deeper into
their hearts He tells them a parable of sorts. “A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come;
but as soon as she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the
anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” What
Jesus means by this is that they will be in anguish like that of a woman in the
pains of labor. They will sorrow and lament because of the persecution of the
world and the terrors of their own consciences. Satan will press them hard with
temptation to defect from discipleship and descend into disbelief. But it will
last a short time, just as a woman’s labor pains last a relatively short period
of time. As the woman in labor gives birth to a child she forgets the trouble
of the labor, the pain is pushed aside as she holds her little one to her
breast and feels the warmth of his presence against her. That is a joy that I
have witnessed. I cannot even begin to imagine the fullness of that joy
experienced by the mother of my children. Jesus gives this to the disciples as a
picture of their hardships for the gospel and their persecution for confessing
Jesus’ doctrine before men. It will hurt. The nails will dig in deep as they
bear their crosses. The load will afflict them and burden them just as it did
their Lord. But their sorrow, their lamentation will last but “a little while.”
6) Jesus spoke this for their comfort. God the Holy Ghost
inspired St. John to record these words for our comfort. Jesus wants
His Christians to be joyful in their sufferings, full of praise in the midst of
their persecutions. He does not want you to despair as you take up your cross
and follow Him. In all our sufferings, especially suffering and persecution for
the sake of the Gospel and the doctrine of Jesus, He reminds us that whatever
our suffering and cross, it will be as His was, “a little while.” In the midst
of “a little while” that small phrase may seem like an enormous burden to bear
because in the middle of suffering we just want it to come to a pleasant end
and be removed. But that is not the life that Christ promises for those who
love His Word and look to Him for mercy. There are times, as all of you can
attest, in which it seems that Christ has gone away from you, and at times He
most certainly does, not in punishment, but to teach you to not rely upon your
own reason and understanding, so that you despair your own works and your own
efforts and learn all the more to trust in His gracious promises to grant mercy
in every time of need. There are time when Christ is concealed from us, when He
is not present, but this is as it was for the first disciples, for our benefit.
When diverse crosses are laid upon our backs, Christ wants us to flee to Him,
the one whose cross killed Him, so that we can drink deeply from the still
waters of His Word and take courage that though Christ’s cross killed Him, God
the Father raised Him from the dead. By this Christ wants to give us courage,
so that we look to Him, trusting in His power to save and His mercy in all our
afflictions. This is how He wills it to be for His Christians.
7) And so this small phrase, “a little while,” should be
used among us as a word of comfort. “A little while” is given to us to remind
us that no matter the trial and cross, whether it be external or one that is
internal, such as the terrors of conscience over sin or any kind of fear of the
devil or the world, we remember that in our weeping and lamentation Christ
promises joy, the kind that the unchristian world and the anti-Christian
culture cannot take away from our hearts. So rejoice in your trial. Make a
joyful shout in your temptations and crosses of every kind. It will last, as
Christ’s did, only “a little while,” then Christ will graciously remove it. You
have His Word. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, guard your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
--
Rev. Josh Sullivan (ELDONA)
Holy Cross Lutheran Church (UAC)facebook.com/