The Church Season
of Easter,
Easter 4, One Year Series
Our Savior
Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (April 29, 2012)
Readings: Psalm 147:1-11
Isaiah 40:25-31 1 Peter 2:11-20
John 16:16-22
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Grace, mercy and
peace be to you from God the Father
and the Son and
the Holy Spirit, Amen
The text for
today’s message will be from the Gospel lesson as recorded in the 10th
chapter of St. John, especially the following verses:
John
16:16-22 (NIV)
16 “In a little while you will see me no
more, and then after a little while you will see me.” 17
Some of his disciples said to
one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me
no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am
going to the Father’?” 18 They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little
while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”
Alleluia,
Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!
Alleluia!
In the Name of
the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit
When
joy is taken away and our darkest fears come true, then our Lord’s words in
today’s Gospel seem shallow. Jesus says, you now have sorrow; but I will see
you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.
He also says our sorrow lasts a little while. Psalm 30 says weeping
may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Distresses are not
worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us by Jesus
Christ.
This
might sound like another “chin up, cheer up, buck up, rub some dirt in it, get
back to work” speech we’ve heard or perhaps we’ve given to others. But, is that
what Jesus means? No. He urges us to look beyond tears of sorrow and misery.
Christ also is saying so much more. Unlike what we say and hear, Jesus is not
making promises based on vague notions that things will be better soon. He is
grounding His words in Himself, not in life experience or the ability to know
and understand more. Jesus bases and establishes His promise in what He has
accomplished for us – and continues to work in us to this day and every day.
This
business of a little while is not about our afflictions as much as it is
about Christ’s afflictions on our behalf. Jesus endured afflictions not to
understand what it’s like to be human. Jesus endured suffering and death so we
would not have to go through what He went through. His suffering and death is
not about our possibilities, but about His true hope.
True
hope is not a wish about what could be. True hope is the Holy Spirit Who gives
us confidence to believe that what Jesus says is true. The Means of Grace
matter. Christ’s life is now lived in us, even as we live in Him. With that
Spirit-given confidence, we have hope that is both defiant and firm. We have
hope that allows us to face our fears, own up to our faults, live through our
sicknesses, laugh during our grief, and stare our own death in the eye without
blinking. That’s what stands behind our Lord’s promise about a little while.
There’s
an even harder to imagine promise Christ gives us in today’s Gospel. Jesus
gives us a joy that no one can take from us. What sort of joy is that? Surely,
it must be more than the many joys we experience. Our joys quickly sour, just
as our hopes and dreams are often disappointed.
The
joy Jesus gives us is the joy of His Holy Spirit. A joy which goes far beyond
emotion. Not a surface joy of goose bumps or chills, or belly laughs. A joy which burrows through our bones into the
very marrow of who we are. However deep our fears go, however hidden our
unhappiness and troubles, however entrenched our sinful lusts and
dissatisfaction there may be, there is the Holy Spirit, there is the hope in
Jesus, and there is the joy He produces.
The
Spirit’s joy is not a pious wish or a rosy prayer. Think about when we sing the
portion of Psalm 51 , “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me…restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with
Thy free Spirit.” These words are the fulfillment of our Lord’s Word, the
realization of His promise lived out on our lips. This is possible only because
of our Lord’s little while. The Lord’s little while is where He
Who fills all things was swallowed by the grave and hell. His little while
is when He Who is almighty was defeated, when Life Himself was dead.
Yet
God the Father raised His Son Jesus from the dead. In that resurrected flesh,
our Lord speaks His Spirit into our spirit. The Holy Spirit of God bears
witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And so who can harm us?
Who can undo what the Lord almighty, the death-destroyer, gives us? Even if we
are overwhelmed by sorrow, and our bodies wracked with unending pain and our
minds continually afraid – who can take away our joy? The Lord and Giver of
Life has given us the Life that our Jesus is. In so doing, He has united us in
God – in a communion that our Father will not revoke.
The
only sorrow that remains is the sorrow of refusing the joy our Lord gives at
His altar, the joy that truly lifts up our hearts and allows us to give thanks
unto the Lord our God. Yet even this sorrow our Father, through His Son by His
Spirit, works continually to overcome. Some of us have returned, even though we
may have never departed! All of us know the joy of our Lord’s never-hesitant,
always-relieving forgiveness.
Endure
the little while. Serve the Lord joyfully for He has served you unto His
death. We enter the kingdom of God
through many tribulations. Do not lose heart. Though we have sorrow, our Lord
Jesus sees us now and He will see us in His House. Our hearts rejoice, for we
have the joy given to us freely that no one can take from us.
In the Name of
the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit
Alleluia,
Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!
Alleluia!
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