✠ Psalmody: Psalm 66:1–2; 3a; Liturgical Text; 1 Corinthians 5:7b, 5:8a, c; Psalm 146:1–2; John 16:16
✠ Lection: Isaiah 40:25–31; 1 Peter 2:11–20; John 16:16–22
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We are now three weeks beyond the end of our fasting and the return to chanting, glorias, and joyous alleluias. We do well to humble ourselves and learn from each annual cycle of the Holy Church’s observances of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our blessed Savior, preparing us for the eternal day to come. Who are you who walk in sorrow away from the spectacular news out of Jerusalem that the tomb is empty? Over our crucified Lord, there is nothing left to weep. The joy rooted in this Good News triumphs over all weeping, lament, sorrow, and anguish. His life awaiting us beyond this vale of tears is akin to the consuming joy of newborn life after long, arduous labor. Yea, we not only make a joyful noise unto God on this Mother’s Day, giving thanks that He makes us able to be fruitful and multiply, but also that in the gift of motherhood lies another picture of the eternal birth from above.
As we progress through another Eastertide, whether it be our eighth, ninth, or 90-something-eth, God’s people look toward not only a celebratory remembrance of His Ascension at 40 days, but also, in real 2025-time, to our Lord’s glorious Second Coming with longing hearts that cry, “Amen! Alleluia! Come, Lord Jesus!”, Our Good Shepherd continues to watch over and prepare us for all the days that we have left here and for the endless day beyond. Today, we consider the Lord’s teaching of the disciples in His Farewell Discourse spoken on the Thursday of Holy Week. As One full of love and compassion for them, He further prepared them for what lay ahead: suffering, weeping, lament, sorrow, and anguish when they witnessed their Lord, their Friend get savagely beaten and hung on a tree unto death. While He was with them, they had joy, but yet understood its fullness in faith, not in sight, thus the removal of Christ from them wrought them bitterly. Where Christ is, there is true joy. Where Christ isn’t is at best false joy, and at worst true hopelessness. But, now for us, we are given this beautiful text of preparation; preparation for here, which prepares well for yonder.
In the yet a little while period we live in, two millennia removed from these words spoken for all of Christ’s sheep, we get the best and the worst. We have received the best news, the good news that in Christ our sins are forgiven, and eternal joy is ours. We live in the worst because this world is fallen, it is broken, it is evil and our flesh relishes in its cup of abomination. For three days the world rejoiced as the enemies of Jesus thought they had won. His dead body was for sure sealed by a great stone in a new tomb; in death’s strong bands He lay. To the opposite were the Disciples and all those who loved Jesus. They were in anguish. They wept. They lamented. They struggled with the reality of evil days that led to that dark Friday. But, just as it was then, the evil joy of the world is short-lived. It is limited. It will not continue. It shall pass. Your pain, suffering, loss, and trials are but for a little while. They are short-lived. They are limited, restrained by God Himself. They will not continue forever, but yet while they do, they are numbered among the crosses that you take up in following Jesus, your dear Master. No splinter, blood, or tear shall the Lord allow to go unused to draw you ever closer to Him. This is the mystery of the cross; that through its suffering your dear Father refines you and your faith as you follow the path that your Savior trod. Yes, the Lord bids you to trust Him through every bitter cup that He has you drink. A life without suffering is abnormal, especially for the Christian, even while the simultaneous joy is everlasting, not a mere three days such as the world relished. The Lord has given to you what He gave to the Apostles: a word of promise. A promise that you shall indeed suffer, weep, and have sorrow, but in full knowledge of what awaits. Enter every trial, every time of sorrow as you do at word of a pregnant loved one going into labor, for though we know the time is full of anguish, none of us respond as if the husband is hastily driving her to the funeral home, but to the delivery room. No, we know that for a little while the anguish will greatly intensify, but we hold onto hope in the Lord’s design; that beyond the sorrow because the pain and labor has come, the Lord brings forth life, as He has proven to do billions and billions of times over. How much more glorious is the labor and pain of this life that shall, without a doubt, bring forth eternal life in Christ, for you carry this hope into the dark knowing that Christ will come again. It is a promise guaranteed by His Holy Spirit now dwelling within you.
The joyous outlook in this example given to you through the Apostles’ sorrow is that during your little while you receive strength from Christ that you need to endure, faith that you need to live, and hope that you need to comfort you. God makes you better, He makes you truer through everything that He allows here. Do not discount His Word in time of need if it doesn’t move you or cause you to stir inside. Emotion doesn’t always pace faith. Cling constantly to what Christ says. Remain steadfast and strong, confident that His Holy Word doesn’t come to you in vain or without effect. There are immeasurable times that you can’t tell that God is working in you through it by His Spirit, but you have comfort in your faith that He is doing exactly what you need by it.
Only after we have come through what God is doing with and in us can we understand what has happened and we discover that He has once again proven to be faithful. It is in the little while that we find our challenge. It is in the yet a little while that we cry out to God, that we question Him, that we struggle with Him and His ways, that we fail to trust Him. Though painful, trials keep our faith healthy, for when our hearts are pampered, they go astray by default in belief that God is not needed. See His mercy, then, in all trials. The stronger our faith is made through a trial further prepares us to endure today and the next, building us up for all that lies ahead, ultimately chiseling and polishing us for the building up of the heavenly Jerusalem for which we long; to which, in Him, we belong. Those prepared by God as living stones may face death without fear, bold in confidence in Him. How blessed a death is that of a saint who has endured much suffering in this life because over and again the lesson has been learned that the Lord delivers by His own victory over death to which we are joined. He promised the Apostles that their greatest, most stunning pain would be yet a little while because He would rise again and indeed, joyous pardon has dawned from the grave. He promises you that your trials are but for a little while even when they seem to be endless. They are not. Jesus is Lord. Do not despair. Grieve and lament the pain of this world but never concede your hope and your joy. Cling to them all-the-more when these evil days, and your very own deceitful mind of sin, try to lead you into hopelessness.
You do not fight alone. Trials and tribulations aren’t moments for you to see just what you’re made of. If put yourself to the test by relying on your strength and ability to be a strong, independent, self-supporting survivor, you’ll discover yourself wanting. You can’t deliver yourself through anguish. You can’t manage this world’s worry, anxiety, fear, depression, remorse, or suffering. We are so self-sufficient in our culture that we only look to God to help us get our head back above water when we finally find ourselves absolutely drowning, while it might just be the Lord holding your head under so that you grasp for His help just as He knows you need to before the true raging storm waves roll in upon you. He is merciful even in the suffering that He brings to you. There is no safer place, there is no more joyous of a place for the heart and mind to dwell than consistently upon the Lord Who chastises; upon the Lord Who saves. His love and care for you His dear child are pulled from an infinitely deep well of goodness.
Our Lord Jesus has led the way. We follow Him in the suffering of this life and do well to pay attention to where He has gone. “I am going to the Father.” It is there that Christ is now seated on Father’s right hand till He makes His enemies His footstool. It is where He invites you to go with all your heart and voice because it is the privilege that Christ has now won for you. You pray to the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit trusting in Him to give you His help in time of need, sorrow, lament, anguish. There is no one, seen or unseen, who is able to match or overthrow the omnipotence of your Father in heaven, Who is always willing and desirous to give His aid. All that you need, He has for you, beloved. And He gladly gives it all to you as the best Father could and would, to see you through this life that is yet a little while unto the life that is to come, one that will last forever, with no more little whiles ever to be had again.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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