22 April 2018
Text: John
10:11-16 (Ezek 34:11-16, 1 Pet 2:21-25)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Our
Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried, and rose again. For forty days, He appeared and preached and
taught. He baffled the authorities and
filled the disciples with courage. But
this period of mentoring is drawing to a close.
The Lord will soon ascend to the Father, and “in a little while,” the
Church will not see Him.
At
least not in the same way.
He
will no longer walk and talk and eat with the disciples. When they want to speak to Him, they will
pray. When they want to hear His Word,
they will read the scriptures in the assembly.
When they want to hear His forgiveness, they will declare it in His
name. And when they wish to experience
Him in the flesh, it will be through the Lord’s Supper.
And
after a “little while,” says our Lord, we will see Him again. He will return to turn our sorrow into joy:
the sorrow of the fallenness of this world, to be changed into the joy of a new
heaven and a new earth.
We
wait for Him to return, dear friends, even as the angels told the disciples as
they watched Him ascend into the heavens that He would indeed return.
This
return, dear friends, is when we will see Him again, and when our “hearts will
rejoice.” It will be a “little while.” Indeed, a “little while longer.”
But
how impatient we are! Instead of keeping
our eyes on the prize of the promise, we wallow in self-pity and complaint of
the cross. We watch the world rejoice at
our pain, our misery, our abuse – and we are indeed sorrowful. We are often defeated in this hateful culture
– by people who lie about us, about our faith, about our Savior, by people in
power who abuse that authority given them from above, using that power to coerce,
to torture, to curtail the liberties of our brothers and sisters around the
world, and even here in our own country.
We
are watching the world decay into not merely madness, but into a seething rage,
a scapegoating our people in ways not seen since the days of the maniacal
emperors of Rome.
St.
Peter bids us to endure the privations placed upon us by emperors and Supreme
Courts. And when we are treated unjustly
and yet endure the sorrows, “this is a gracious thing.” Our forbearance in this fallen and violent
world is a confession of faith – faith in something better to come. We don’t have to overthrow the empire, for
Jesus did that very thing, bringing the emperor Constantine to the faith
without firing a single arrow, without rising up in mutiny, without living by
the sword, which certainly means to die by the sword.
Our
suffering is not a small thing, nor is our suffering in vain. “So also,” says our Lord, “you have sorrow
now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no-one will
take your joy away from you” – no one, dear friends, not a mentally unstable
emperor, not a crooked court, not a culture of death, not swarms of people filled
with hatred and rage, not Communists, not Nazis, not secularists, not even our
own sinful flesh – will take our joy from us.
The
Lord compares this “little while” of weeping and lamenting to the “anguish” of
giving birth. Labor pains and birth
pangs are excruciating, but when they are over, they are over. And instead of haunting memories of agony,
there is rather “joy that a human being has been born into this world.”
Our
Lord teaches us that our burdens and crosses that plague us, that beat us down,
that wear us out in body and in mind, the things that vex us, perplex us, anger
us, hurt us, and seem to have no end – will indeed one great day come to a
screeching halt, never to be repeated again.
We
live for this great day, dear friends!
And it is the promise of this New Day that empowers us to survive and to
endure the present days of suffering and strife, the time of the cross. For we know that after Good Friday comes
Easter. And we know that the Lord goes
away for a “little while,” and we know that we will see Him again.
We
know that “He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable.” But what’s more, “He gives power to the
faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and
young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and
not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
So,
dear friends, let us not be puzzled like the disciples were, wanting to ask Him
but perhaps afraid. Let us pray
fervently for His return, for our suffering to end, for the birth pangs of the
fallen world to be replaced by a new and greater world, and above all, let us
rejoice that a human being has been born into the world, a unique Human Being
who is truly human, bearing completely the image and likeness of God, for He is
God, even Jesus Christ our Lord, the man of sorrows whose suffering won true
joy for us.
Let
us yearn for that great and wondrous day when He will see us again, and our
hearts will rejoice, and no one will take our joy from us! 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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