Sermon text: John 16:16–22
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Have you ever listened to somebody deliver a speech, or maybe give a presentation — heaven forbid, preach a sermon — and think to yourself, “What in the world did he talk about?” Well, that’s the position of the disciples this morning in the gospel lesson. Try as they might to understand, Jesus wasn’t making sense to them on the night in which He was betrayed. And as Jesus spoke, the disciples said to one another, “What is this that He says to us?”
So what is it that Jesus actually said that puzzled them? So it seems somewhat obvious to us at the moment. It was this: “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me, because I am going to the Father.” Their basic response was something like, “Are you leaving? Where are you going? I mean, you really mean you’re going away? You’re going to be gone?” The disciples didn’t see that coming in the ministry of Jesus. They’d been with Him for three and a half years, walking side by side, knowing Him, as theologians would say, locally: a body and soul, an ordinary-appearing man, a man of flesh. They’re confused by the statement. It sounded a bit like a riddle to them: “A little while, and you will see me no longer. And again, a little while, and you will see me.”
It’s easy to imagine the response and the look on the disciples’ faces as they repeat the statement over and over again to each other in sheer puzzlement. In verse 17 it says, “So some of his disciples said to one another, ‘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 am going to the Father”?’” The news of Jesus’s departure wasn’t in the plan, so they thought. So, they’re confused at the suggestion that He would somehow leave them and they would no longer see Him as He is again. They often struggled with the meaning of Jesus’s statements and stories, but this one seemed to be a bit more complex than most. It’s not the easiest thing to figure out even now when you go through the grammar.
So, what did Jesus mean? It could be argued that Jesus intended the statement to be a double entendre — which means to have one statement which has two reference points, two meanings, for two different groups of people. In this case, one meaning for the disciples in their immediate situation, and in another case a broader, longer meaning statement that fits our situation as Christians in this world.
So what does Jesus say when He says “in a little while”? The conversation, by the way, took place in the upper room. It was Maundy Thursday, the night in which Jesus was to be betrayed, arrested, taken the next day to the cross. The disciples would see Jesus for just a little while longer in the same manner that they had seen and talked with Him and touched Him and been with Him for the past three years. The disciples would see Jesus as they had seen Him for a little while longer. But in just a little while more — why, Jesus was signaling that things were about to change radically and significantly. Something was about to happen to change the status quo and their futures as disciples forever. In just a matter of hours, Jesus would be absent from them, taken from them out of the garden of Gethsemane. He won’t be with them as He had been with them for His previous three years.
After all, they had now finished the Passover meal. Jesus had ended the Passover meal and instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. After the supper, Jesus was preparing them for what was about to happen to Him and to them. He was telling them that He was going to leave them for a time and would be going back to His heavenly Father. Minutes after this conversation this morning, Jesus and the disciples would walk to the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus would fall on His face and pray, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
This would be followed by Jesus’s betrayal by Judas, His arrest by the Praetorian guard, and Jesus being hauled off to a series of unjust, rigged trials through the night. And then finally in the morning, He’d be taken to Pontius Pilate, the governor appointed by Rome. And then the cry of “Crucify, crucify him” would rise from the crowd. And on Friday, they would get what they asked. Golgotha, the cross, the nails, darkness, death, burial — all within 24 hours of Jesus issuing that first warning: “After a little while, you will see me no longer.” And that literally became the reality for Jesus and His disciples.
What was the response from Jesus being taken from them? The response was what Jesus predicted their response would be. Verse 20: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful.” And that’s exactly what happened. The disciples were crushed. Their master, whom they had pinned all their hopes on, their beloved master, teacher, the one who they correctly identified as the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, would be dead and buried within a matter of hours — in short order, or in the language of Jesus, in just a little while. They had come so far, they thought, and now it was back to square one, or perhaps even worse.
What would happen to them now with Jesus no longer at their side? With Him gone, with Him now dead, because the authorities had accomplished their goal of ridding — quote — they thought, the world of this poser, the one who made himself out to be God. It was a scary three days. But Jesus had told them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.” And think of how they mocked Him and they beat Him and they clothed Him in a purple robe and with a crown of thorns. Think of the mocking that He endured as He hung there by the nails on the cross on Good Friday. Unbelievers and cruel men were rejoicing that Jesus was getting what they believed He deserved. Who is He to call them to repentance and make Himself out to be the Son of God? While Jesus’s disciples and followers wept and mourned, the world rejoiced, thought they had been rid of this promised Messiah.
But what was done was done. So the disciples had to turn to themselves. Jesus was dead and gone. Or so they thought. Now they had to worry about what was going to happen to them and how they could escape the certain fate, after all: a student is not treated better than the master. But here on the night in which Jesus was being betrayed, He was assuring them, His disciples, that even though things would seem acutely grim, that would not be the end of Him or of them.
“A little while, and you will see me no longer. And again a little while, and you will see me.” From before the foundation of the world was made, there was always going to be a second “a little while.” In the immediate context, Jesus’s statement of a second “a little while” is a reference to His resurrection. That’s the first meaning of the double entendre. After the first “a little while” — Christ’s crucifixion and burial on Good Friday — it would only be a little while, namely Sunday morning, until they would see Him again with their very own eyes. Following the sequence: Jesus was with His disciples talking with them on Thursday evening. Jesus is crucified, dead, and buried on Good Friday, taken from the disciples, and seemingly gone from them forever on Holy Saturday. Then Jesus is resurrected and restored to His disciples once again in flesh, and with them in plain sight on Sunday afternoon. All within a few days: a little while and a little while.
Jesus told them, “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” He makes the promise that that is as sure and certain as the resurrection itself: the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning, from death to life, and always life. In the language of Christ and the Christian doctrine, life is always joy. We tend to forget that. So much of our lives is taken up in some kind of hardship or suffering. We often don’t think of the joy that waits for us. We don’t measure our present struggles and strife against the great glory that is to come to us when Christ returns again.
But Christ compares sorrow to joy, a movement to the woman giving birth to a child. He says in verse 21, “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” The pain will increase and intensify and gain frequency. But the woman feels — at the moment she feels she can’t take it anymore — the birth comes, and with it almost immediate joy. The point is: the anguish, while intense, only lasts for a relatively very, very short period of time. The pain gives way to a wonderful joy which far outweighs the pain felt in the short time earlier.
That’s the point, and that’s the truth that ought to comfort every Christian in his or her life during times of pain and hardship and suffering. Christian joy lasts much longer than the pain: eternally longer than the pain. Because now a new life has come into the world: our new life in Christ Jesus. Jesus concludes, “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
That’s the second double entendre. That’s the second “a little while.” For a little while — the first — we’re in suffering and pain. And the second: in a little while, you’ll be filled with an eternal joy that cannot be extinguished. On Easter day, when the disciples saw that the Lord was alive and well and standing before them, they rejoiced behind those doors. Not only was their master alive, they also began to understand why it is He had to die in the first place, and what His death meant for their lives. He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, the text tells us. It was necessary for the Christ to suffer and die for sinful humanity. For only the perfect Son of God could atone for the sins of the whole world. The sinless one for all the sinful ones. It was the only way our sins could be atoned for. The only way for death to be overcome: God’s sinless Son must die and rise after a little while for sinners.
But now the Lord shows us that His rescue mission was successful. It was complete. Sins are forgiven. Death has been conquered. The work is finished. A new life, a resurrected life, was given and received by the newly birthed saints like you. From death to life, from sorrow to joy. A little while sorrow, and a little while joy.
Too many of us, when put to suffering, pain, and loneliness, think that that’s all there is for us in this world. That’s all our life will consist of in the years and months that come ahead. When put to suffering and pain and loss, we think that’s it. God’s abandoned us. We don’t do what we should do. We should wrap ourselves in the eternal joy that waits for us in just a little while.
In the gospel of Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus gives you a joy that no one can take from you. It’s a joy that runs deeper than your circumstances. If only you and I could dwell on the joy that is coming to us, has been given to us, has been received by us by faith and hope and love — why, those troubled times wouldn’t seem quite so troubling. Rather than seeing how unfair God’s being in our current hardship — why, looking at the greater sinners around us, so to speak, and how they prosper while we suffer — we lose ourselves, and we lose the joy that God has given to us in His Son Jesus Christ.
Not only will Christians have to suffer the illnesses and sickness and maladies and heartaches common to mankind, but the world will hate you, Jesus teaches us, because you are children of the heavenly Father. They hate you because they hate your master, Jesus Christ. They mock you because they mock your master, Jesus Christ. For the student will not be treated better than his master. But the world rejoices at the church’s misfortunes. But no one can take our joy, our real joy, our true joy, our joy in Christ and in His resurrection. We know that our Redeemer lives. And oh, what a sweet sentence that is. He lives, and because He lives, you too will live. We live because our lives are joined to Jesus and forever by virtue of our Baptism. For do you not know that all of you who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? And if you’ve been baptized into his death, you will be baptized into his resurrection.
The world still persecutes us, mocks us, speaks ill of us. But there it is again: the second “a little while.” Like the disciples, we are called to endure for a little while the anguish and sorrows of this world, so that we may rejoice in the joy that is coming. It is just a little while — relatively speaking — that our sorrows and our sufferings govern our lives. But compared to the joy that we’re going to receive — that’s what Paul writes: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
Better times are coming. Jesus Himself is coming again, and everything will be restored and made much better than it is now. Revelation 21:5: “And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” That includes you. For now we have our little while, the first one. But it’s the second little while that leads to eternal joy. It is our Easter joy and our Easter morning. This second little while, where our sins are forgiven. And that’s what Jesus was preaching about. Not confusing at all.
So when you get confused in the midst of your suffering and your trials, just remember: a little while, for your sins are forgiven, and your joy will be given. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.