7 May 2017
Text: John 16:16-22
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In
all of our ongoing celebrations of the resurrection of our Lord, amid our
rejoicing in His victory over sin, death, and the devil, and even as we
rightfully continue the feast of Easter – a triumph that will indeed continue
on into eternity – we dare not forget that we still live in this fallen
world.
Even
as we wait for our Lord’s return, we must still contend with the devil, the
world, and our sinful nature. Although
the war has been won and the ultimate victory is ours, we still find ourselves
squaring off in battle. And though we
know how the war turns out, battle is still painful, for this world still
conspires against us, the devil still hates us, and our own flesh betrays us.
“Truly,
truly, I say to you,” says our Lord, “you will weep and lament, but the world
will rejoice.” For lest we become too
comfortable and cozy with the world, let’s not forget that the world is our
enemy. We’re in it, but not of it. And until our Lord’s return and the
restoration of paradise, Satan remains the prince of this fallen world, the chief
demon at the top of the dunghill, the lord of flies. And though flies cannot kill us, they
nevertheless buzz around us and remind us, like miniature vultures, of the
nature of this world: a place of death.
Jesus
died to defeat death. Our Lord’s death
assures us that we too will conquer our own death. And yet this fallen world remains a place of
death. So let’s not become too
comfortable in it.
Dear
friends, dear Christians, dear brothers and sisters, we are not here in this
world to become comfortable with sin, death, and the devil, to excuse them, to
see them as benign, or to invite them to dine with us. We are here to fight the enemy. We are here to rescue the victims. We are here to treat the wounded. We are here to let our light shine in the
darkness. The world is our enemy, and
our enemies are prisoners of the darkness.
We are here to show them a more excellent way; we are not here to
camouflage ourselves to the shapes and contours of the world.
This
reality becomes most apparent to us when the world steps out from behind its
façade of tolerance and acceptance and bares its hateful teeth toward us. In many ways, this is a good thing. It reminds us of to whom we belong.
Dear
Christians, the world hates you. The
world (meaning the larger culture in which we live and work) is hostile to
Jesus, hostile to the church, and hostile to you. They may tolerate you so long as you don’t
express any opinion contrary to those positions approved by the world. They may tolerate you if you keep your
religion to yourself. Maybe. Don’t be fooled.
For
what does our Lord – the Lord who was Himself crucified as the enemy of this
world – what does He tell us will happen?
Not might happen, but will happen: “You will weep and lament,
but the world will rejoice.”
The
world mocks us and calls us bigots. The
world takes great joy at the fact that the Kleins, followers of Christ Jesus,
have been fined $135,000 for not baking a cake. The world cheers when courts
who claim to support the constitution rule against our God-given liberty. The world mocks Baronelle Stutzman, a soft-spoken
gray-haired Christian florist who is looking at losing her life savings and
even her house, because she refused to accept a job that would have violated
her Christian faith and conscience. These are our brothers and sisters whose
lives are devastated by the hatred of the world. And all around the world, our brothers and
sisters are being imprisoned, tortured, and beheaded.
When
sports, movies, and television, the public schools, the universities, popular
music, and every aspect of the culture all array themselves to be openly hostile to
Christianity, and conspire to target your children to pressure them to give up
their faith – the world makes it clear that it is not our friend. We are not welcome in this world, dear
friends.
The
sooner we come to grips with this reality, the better.
So
what do we do? We do what we have always
done: we baptize our babies, we read the Bible to our toddlers, we catechize
the youth, we attend worship with our children as they grow, we take part in
Holy Communion, we pray, we read scripture, we support our congregation with
our presence, with our time, and with our money, we do not back down or
compromise, nor do we go out of our way to look for trouble. We confess our sins and we confess our
faith. We are prepared to give an answer
for the hope within us even as we live in the desert of this world that seeks
our destruction.
That,
dear friends, is how Christians address the sorrow of the world’s hatred. This is how early Christians could gather at
the stadium, not to cheer the team, but to pray and sing hymns before being fed
to wild animals in the face of a cheering crowd. It was abundantly clear that the world hated
them. But they remembered our Lord’s
word: “You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.”
But,
dear friends, we are not abandoned in our sorrow and in the hatred of the
world. We are not left to the tender
mercies of our fallen nature, of Satan, nor of the grave. For we have a Savior who has come to rescue
us from the prison of this world and the shackles of the grave. For our Lord said, “You will be sorrowful,
but your sorrow will turn into joy.”
Joy,
dear friends. Even when the cheering mob
assaults us. Even when the government
and the courts seek our destruction.
Even when it seems like our faith will die in a generation because the
minds of the young have been poisoned.
Jesus said that our sorrow will “turn into joy.”
It
is like when a mother gives birth. She
suffers immensely during labor. But once
the baby has been born, her sorrow turns to joy, and her pain is pushed to the
back of her mind, because pain endured out of love is not resented. Such pain is offered to the beloved, for it
is endured for the sake of love. The
love a mother has for her child may be the closest thing we have in this fallen
world to the kind of love God has for us, the love we see impaled upon the
cross, the love that forgives our sins (though we do not deserve it), the love
that destroys the power of the devil (though we often allow temptation to have its
way with us), the love that delivers to us everlasting life: the very opposite
of the death and decay offered by the world.
Our
Lord told us that we are not of the world, the He has overcome the world, and
that we will not be overwhelmed by the world.
In
fact, dear friends, we should see our trials and tribulations in this world as
a blessing. For we can clearly see who
the enemy is. Far too often, we try to
befriend our beguiling foe. Far too
often we think we fit in – when we never will.
Let
us take up our cross and remember whom we follow. Let us not be discouraged, for we know that we
will rejoice. Let us endure our sorrow
in good cheer, knowing that the war has already been won by Him who has
overcome the world, all for you.
Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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