Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Easter 3 – Jubilate (May 6, 2001)

John 16:16-22

On the occasion of the Baptism of Zoe Nicole Buhr

TITLE: “Grief into Joy”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for this morning is from John chapter 16.  Today we will be talking about how God turns grief into joy.

What does it mean to have resurrection joy?  Jesus says at the end of our text that I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.  Simply put, God wants you to have joy in His presence.  This joy from God is not simply happiness or giddiness.  It is connected to the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.  Rejoicing in God means connecting your life to the life of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Now at first glance, that sounds easy, doesn’t it?  Let’s look at our text, though, and see what Jesus is really talking about.  Our text for today takes place the night Jesus was betrayed.  Just a few hours after He gave the disciples the Lord’s Supper, Jesus says to them:  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.  Then He goes into this series of statements, a little while.  A little while and you will not see me, and again in a little while and you will see me.  Seven times we hear that phrase, a little while.

We get the picture from Jesus that there is a journey going on.  For the disciples, there will be a time when he’ll be gone, and a time when He returns.  When did Jesus leave them?  He left them when He was betrayed, suffered and died.  So when did he return to them?  He returned to them when He rose again from the dead.  This is what He means when He says that their sorrow will be turned into joy.  The world rejoiced at His death, but now the heavenly world rejoices at His resurrection.

God turns the sorrow of death into resurrection joy.  Simple, isn’t it?  Yes, it is simple, and if this is all it meant, then it really wouldn’t have much to do with you today, now would it?

So what else does Jesus mean when He says a little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me.  Notice that word see.  Jesus says that there will be a time in each of our lives when we will not be able to see him.  We can’t experience Him first-hand.  But we know that He is still here.  Remember again Jesus’ words at His Ascension, behold I am with you always, to the very end of the age.  Jesus promises that He will always be present with us.  God’s presence doesn’t disappear when things get tough in our lives.  No, instead it is when we are weak and helpless that He is strong.

Let me explain.  Jesus uses the example of a woman in labor.  A woman in labor has one thing on her mind: bring the child into the world safely.  That’s all that matters.  There is sorrow, yes.  There is pain, yes.  But in a way it doesn’t matter, because you know that all of it will be worth it in the end.  You can endure the hardship because you know that what will come afterwards will make it so you can hardly remember the pain that came along the way.  This is what Jesus means when He uses the words, a little while.  The suffering and hardship of this life lasts but a little while.  In the scale of eternity in God, it just isn’t that significant.  Is it real?  Yes.  Do these struggles and trials hurt at times?  Yes, very much so.  But Jesus promises here that He will be with you through the trial.

Remember again the words from Romans chapter six,

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

When you were baptized, just like little Zoe was baptized today, you entered into this little while Jesus is talking about in our text.  You are now in the time of sorrow and trials that we all face in this life.  This should not surprise us.  Your life is Christ’s life, and like your Lord, you, too, face trials and tribulations in this life.

And notice, too, where these struggles come from.  They come from your daily life.  They come from dealing with you children and your parents.  They come from work, from the pressures to make a living.  They come from friends.  In other words, the struggles of being a Christian rise out of wherever God has placed you in this life.  God is the one who has made you a father, mother, son or daughter.  He’s the one who has given you a job, or a school.  He’s the one who put you into family, has given you friends, and the like.  And so it is in these places that the trials of the baptismal life take their shape.

What is difficult, of course, is to keep focus.  Like the woman in labor from our text, we really have one goal in life: to get through life as a Christian so we may go to heaven in the end.  Or we could put it another way: the goal of the Christian Church is to give birth to Christians that are born into eternal life.  That is our purpose.  That is our place in this world.  Now how that interacts with being a husband or wife or a child is sometimes hard to see.  But see it we must, for it is only in this hope of eternal life that life makes sense.

Perhaps this is why God allows sorrow and hardship to befall the Christian.  He wants us to remember that coming through life alive is a hard thing, no, it is an impossible thing without the grace of God.  God wants us to remember that He is God, and that we are not.  He wants to give you all the blessings of eternity, He can’t do it if you make yourself out to be your own God, or if you pretend that you can make it on your own.

But take heart, dear Christian friends!  Remember again the words of Isaiah, But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.  Even though you live with sorrow for a time today, God will see you through.  You cannot see Jesus with your eyes, but He is very much here, hidden under bread and wine which is His body and blood.  He will give you joy like no other.  You are the children of God, and God always keeps His promises.

The time and struggles of this life last just a little while.  There will come a time, soon, when we will no longer even remember these trials, because of the joy in Christ that will be yours.  May it ever be so for you.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Copyright © 2001 by Todd A. Peperkorn.