I was driving home from the Pastors’
Conference on Tuesday, and as I normally do, I was listening to Sports Radio –
and it was right after the bombings at the Boston Marathon, and the host was
almost in shock, and he asked, “How do you tell your kids that we live in a
dangerous world, I don’t even want to think about that.” That stood out to me, because Christ Jesus
our Lord has never hidden from us, indeed, He continually reminds us that we do
live in a dangerous, terrible world – a world where people will indeed rejoice
when we suffer. Indeed, the story of the
Scriptures is the story of suffering in the world, from Adam and Eve all
throughout the Old Testament. Indeed, we
as Christians know that Christ Jesus came to this world to share in our
Sufferings, to take them up upon Himself, to win the victory over them. But that doesn’t mean that moments in our
lives won’t be filled with terror and fear and suffering in pain.
Jesus knows that, and Jesus prepares us for that,
indeed, He teaches them how to endure. In
our Gospel text, our Lord is speaking to the disciples on Maundy Thursday, on
the night before He is crucified, and He speaks these words to them – “A little while and you will see me no
longer, and again a little while, and you will see me.” When Jesus speaks these words to the
disciples, they are confused. They are
bewildered. What in the world is Jesus
talking about? Jesus continues – “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will
weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.
You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 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. 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.”
Now, Jesus here is directly speaking to His
crucifixion. In a little while, just a
few short hours, the soldiers will take Jesus away, and they will put Him to
death. And the disciples will weep, they
will fear, all while the powers of the world rejoice over the fact that they
have crucified this Jesus. Yet, on the
third day, the disciples see Christ again, and they rejoice, they have
joy. They see and understand the joy of
Easter, it is theirs. They have it, they
see Christ resurrected, and the sorrows of the crucifixion are done away with
by the joy of the resurrection and the life and salvation which it brings.
So why do we read this now? Why would the Holy Spirit have John include
this in His Gospel? What importance is
this text, this passage to us living in 2013, to us who from our earliest times
have been taught and shown the joyous resurrection of Easter? Is it meant to simply be an example? See, Jesus shows care and compassion, see He
gently guides the disciples through hard times.
Well, it is a good example, and you would do well to imitate Christ
Jesus your Lord in His love and compassion, you would do well to make your
words sound like His Words. But that is
something we can see and learn whenever we look at Christ. No, John here is teaching us something beyond
just Christ’s example. Through John,
Christ Jesus speaks these words to you, so that you may know where joy is,
where joy remains, even in the darkest and deepest times.
You
will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. What Jesus says here is actually very
elegant. Jesus lays out a contrast for
us – weeping and lamentation versus rejoicing.
And indeed, Christ’s words were an accurate description of what occurred
on Good Friday. Yet dear friends, what
we are to remember is that they also accurately describe all too often your
life in the world. The world still rejoices
while Christians weep and lament. There are persecutions still going on,
churches bombed, places where people are threatened and intimidated for the
faith. Many Christians are weeping and
lamenting this moment as the world enjoys its persecution of them.
But what of you and your life? What of your tears, what of your
sorrows? You have them, do you not? You don’t have to have any ties to Boston or Texas
in order to know pain and sorrow – I’m sure you have plenty of your own. You mourn the loss of loved ones – and Satan
cackles at your tears. You feel aches
and pains, you see your own body fall apart – and the lord of lies
rejoices. But even more than that – you
struggle and toil in your life, and people throw hardships at you – and they
rejoice at your suffering, they delight in making your life less. Does that not all too often describe our
lives? If I asked, could not each one of
you list off several people who seem to delight in making your life harder –
who seem to delight in aggravating you, berating you, and generally being an
annoyance? You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. This is nothing new, for ever since the fall
it has been the way of the sinful world to be a dog eat dog place, where people
are selfish and desire to dominate and control their neighbor, who demand their
own way at their neighbor’s expense. Do
we ourselves not even fall into this on occasion, do we not feel our own flesh
cry out to lash out, to strike back in anger?
Do we not often join in the world’s wicked rejoicing as we cause our
neighbor to suffer?
It’s a nasty, vicious cycle, isn’t
it? Someone hurts us, we hurt them in
return. Soon we aren’t speaking. Someone bosses us around, we show them in
return who’s boss, and then all thoughts of love are gone, and all that remains
is power and having things done my way.
Someone insults us, we insult them back, and pain and suffering grows
and multiplies. Someone does something
we don’t like, and so we do something they don’t like, and all becomes petty. Things can turn nasty quickly, can’t they, in
this sinful fallen world when we play along with the world’s rules.
So how is this cycle broken? How do we get out of it? Whether we are down over the trials and
sorrows of our life, or whether we are caught in those nasty fights that all
too often happen, how are these cycles broken?
Christ our Lord tells us. You will weep and lament, but the world
will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but
your sorrow will turn to joy.
Why? How will we have joy? A
little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while and you
will see me. So often, when we
look at our suffering, when we focus on our own pain – who are we not focusing
on? When we lament our lives, when we
lament how unjustly we are treated, who are we not seeing? We aren’t seeing Jesus. The answer to how these cycles are broken is
for the Christian to behold Christ. Are
you suffering? Behold Christ Jesus, our
Lord. Did He not suffer more than
you? And yet He rose, and so shall
you. Do those who should be your friends
despise you, treat you unkindly? Was not
Jesus betrayed by a kiss from His friend, His bosom companion? And yet, Christ rose, and so shall you. Our thoughts as Christians, as the very name
Christian would imply, are to be upon Christ.
Draw out the contrast for yourself.
When you are hurt, when you are angry, are you thinking of Christ or of
yourself? When you seek vengeance, when
you seek your own way, are you thinking of Christ or of yourself? Of course at those moments of darkness you
are not thinking of Christ, for God is love, and if you were focused upon
Christ you would be filled with love. Be
focused on Christ – that is how to put an end to the cycle of misery. Be focused on Christ, and view your own
sufferings as simply a participation in His, let your own sufferings point you
to Christ, for as Peter says, “For
this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while
suffering unjustly.” Be
focused on Christ, and as Peter says, “abstain
from the passions of the flesh, which wage war on your soul.” When this happens, when you see Christ in
all things, when you see Christ in all times and in all places, you will have
joy, joy that no one can take away from you for no matter what happens to you,
Christ Jesus is yours.
But how does this
happen? How does this come about? How can your eyes see Jesus when you are
surrounded by so much, so much pain, so much sorrow, so many who would do you
wrong? The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak, and all too often we see not Christ, but rather simply
pain. Hear again what our Lord teaches
us in the Gospel. 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. Our eyes wander, they flit and twist and
often go astray. We know well our own
wandering eye. Yet what does Christ
say? Christ says, “I will see you again
and your hearts will rejoice.” Christ
Jesus sees you, and He will give you joy.
Christ Jesus sees you, and He will draw your eyes unto Himself so that
you see Him and Him alone. Christ Jesus
sees you, and He holds up His hands to show you the nail marks, shows you the
spear hole in His side and says, “I have suffered all for your sake, and you
are forgiven. I have suffered all for
your sake, and you conquer all.” Christ
sees you – and He continually sees you.
When you were Baptized, Christ saw you, saw you by the power of water and
the Word as His own brother. Even now
this instant, He sees you as the Baptized, for you have Christ’s own name
applied to you. He sees you through His
Word, for indeed He comes to you by the Word and says, “Behold all that I have
done for you my beloved – I am with you even to the end of the age.” He sees you and brings you to His altar. Here, take and eat, let me give you my own
Body to help your body endure in the face of its suffering. Here, take and drink, let me give you my own
Blood so that your blood might no longer run hot with anger but rather with the
forgiveness which was won when this very blood poured from my side. Christ sees you, sees you in the midst of
your struggles, and He has compassion upon you, and draws your eyes to Him over
and over again.
Dear friends – in this world we all
too often suffer. We might try to forget
that suffering happens, we might try to live in blissful denial, but no, we
know what this world is like. Indeed,
often enough our own sin makes things worse for our neighbor. But Christ our Lord beholds us, and draws our
eyes to Him that we may be forgiven, and that being forgiven and seeing Him, in
all things rejoice. This is true, and it stands out over everything else in the
world. Christ is Risen (He is Risen
Indeed, Alleluia) Amen.
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