Sermon: Jubilate (Easter 4) - 2020

3 May 2020

Text: John 16:5-15

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Our Lord is preparing His disciples for His cross.  For in the “little while” between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, they will see Him no longer.  They are confused, but seem afraid to ask for clarification.  Jesus explains this coming period, this “little while” as a kind of cross that the disciples will themselves bear.  After all, to be a disciple of Jesus is to take up our own crosses and to follow Him.

So our Lord explains what it means to be a Christian in this fallen world: “You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.”  For we Christians are seen as the enemies of the world.  We do not join the world in their worship of false gods.  We do not conform to the world’s standards of morality.  We are “in the world,” as our Lord says, but we are not “of the world.”  We are always strangers and aliens in this mortal life.

And so when we suffer, the world is glad.  It is a mark of the fallenness of our world and the nature of sin.  But Jesus tells us that our “sorrow will turn into joy.”  For the torments of this fallen world – whether they be this pandemic, anxiety over the future, other health issues, family problems, financial woes, our own sinful nature, mourning the death of loved ones, or even pondering our own mortality – are all slated for destruction.  And just as surely as the sun re-emerges from the darkness, this ‘little while” of mourning, of sorrow, of the feeling of isolation – will come to a sudden end, just as abruptly as the risen Lord burst into the locked room to appear to the no-longer-sorrowful disciples on that first Easter!

Jesus compares our suffering in this life to a woman’s labor pains.  Once they are finished, something magnificent and sublime overcomes even the memory of sorrow.  And this is what eternity will be for us, dear friends.  But until that time, we must bear the cross.  But even then, we rejoice, because the crosses we bear are nothing compared to the cross our Lord bore for us.  And by His cross, we have the promise of eternal joy – the joy that comes after this “little while” of sorrow.

So no matter how perplexing and even depressing things become in this life, remember the Lord’s promise: “So also you will have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no-one will take your joy from 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.