John 16:12-22 / 5 Easter / 6 May 2007 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
In Nomine Iesu
Jesus has more things to say to His disciples in that upper room on the night He was betrayed into death to save the world. More than they could bear to hear. You can only take so much. Jesus is less than twelve hours from His crucifixion, and yet He is in no hurry. No need to cram their heads full of things, like a student cramming for a final. The Holy Spirit will take care of things, speaking what He hears, declaring the coming things, giving glory to Jesus by delivering all that Jesus has to give. What Jesus has, He recevies from the Father, and what He has He gives to you by way of the Spirit. From Father to Son to Spirit to you, gathered here this morning.
He prepares them for His death and resurrection, one last time. “In a little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” By the close of that day, Jesus will be dead and buried, tucked out of sight in the grave. And then, in a little while, three days, they would seem Him again, and their sorrow would turn to joy.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all sorrows lasted only three days? Wouldn’t it be nice if all the pain and suffering of this life could be packed into a Friday and be over by Sunday? Jesus likens it to the birthing of a child. I’m told it’s always risky for a man to make comparisons about pregnancy and childbirth. “You have no idea what it’s like,” we are told. And rightly so. We have no idea what it’s like. But it’s the Lord who is speaking, and He does know what it’s like, even though He’s a man in His incarnation. He’s the Word who spoke the amplified pain of childbirth to Eve in her disobedience.
Nora Ephron commented, “If pregnancy were a book, they would cut the last two chapters.” No one in the animal kingdom suffers quite like a human mother. It is a sign of our sin, and a reminder that salvation comes through the birth of the promised Child. Pain and promise go together, as Law and Gospel. “When a mother is giving birth,” Jesus says, “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 child has been born into the world.” The pain is quickly forgotten, and good thing too, otherwise we first-borns would be only-children.
The joy of the birth wipes out the memory of the suffering. The pain of death, with all its attendant tears and grief, is wiped out by the joy of the resurrection, a new creation, the Church’s wedding day when she appears as a bride for husband, the day when God and Man dwell together in blood reconciled peace, thanks to Jesus. The end of mourning, weeping, pain, sorrow. The former things are gone, the new has come. Death is swallowed up in the victory of Jesus. “Behold, I am making all things new.”
It is already done. “It is finished,” Jesus cried from the cross on that good, dark Friday at 3 pm when He died, and when in Him the whole world died in His flesh. The work of salvation is accomplished. “It is done,” He says in the vision to John. It happened in Him. The old is gone - crucified, dead, and buried. The old creation with its wars and terrors and disasters and doom. The old Adam with his rebellion and self-centeredness and pride, wanting to be a god, killing all who get in his way. All are dead and buried and done with in the death of Jesus. The new has come - a new creation stepping out of the grave, blessing and breathing life into frightened disciples, proclaiming victory among the the gravestones. He is the beginning and the end, the Alpha of the cosmos and its Omega.
Did the disciples understand this in that upper room that night? Do we here today? Now we see only in part. A glimpse of glory at best. The whole creation groans as in labor pains, St. Paul says in the way of Jesus. Every war, every tidal wave, every eco-disaster, every mass murder, every act of terror is a birth pang, a contraction of the birth of the new creation. The baby’s on the way, but not yet here. We’d like to leave out the last two chapters on the book of pregnancy, but then we’d never get to the baby. We’d like to leave out those last two chapters of the world’s long history, the part about nations collapsing, and the environment collapsing, and the great institutions of men crumbling. We’d prefer to skip over Good Friday and head straight to Easter Sunday, go right from the upper room on Thursday to the upper room on Sunday evening and somehow bypass that hill outside Jerusalem with its bloody cross.
“You will be sorrowful,” Jesus told His disciples. The sword would pierce them too. Peter would feel the sorrow of denying His Lord, of failing to speak when given the chance, of failing to stand up and be counted as one of Jesus’ disciples. They all would fall away, in their own way, running, hiding, fearful, sorrowful. Don’t imagine for a moment there were no tears of grief at sundown of Good Friday or the Sabbath day that followed. Don’t think for a moment that the disciples went back to business as usual on Saturday as Jesus’ body lay in the tomb. There was sorrow, the kind of sorrow that only death can bring, tearing away from you those you love.
Jesus looks beyond the sorrow. “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.” Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Imagine the joy of the first day of the resurrection, that day Jesus stepped out of the tomb and appeared to His grieving disciples. Can you begin to imagine the shock and awe of seeing crucified Jesus risen from the dead? To hear Him, see Him, touch Him, eat with Him. The joy must have been so great it almost hurt. I can’t imagine it any other way.
Most joys in life are temporary, fleeting. A sports team wins a thrilling championship and then it’s back to practice the following day. You ace the final and get an A in that difficult course, and then a new semester begins. The joy of a wedding day and the honeymoon gets swamped by the day to day reality of being married for life. Imagine the thrill of Pentecost - the Holy Spirit poured out on the Church like a fire; the disciples speaking in tongues; three thousand people come to faith in Christ and are baptized in a single day. They were literally baptizing people that whole Sunday.
Then the reality of life under the cross sets in. There is religious opposition, arrest, persecution, threats from the outside and from the inside. Luke tells us in the 11th chapter of Acts how the some of the early believers responded to the new push into the world of the Gentiles and how Peter had preached Christ to Gentiles who believed and were baptized. What was their reaction to this miracle of the Holy Spirit? They criticized Peter for eating with Gentiles! They criticized him for bringing the Gospel of Jesus to non-Jews! Peter had to tell them about the vision he had - three times, the Lord told him to eat what was formerly considered unclean - and how the Spirit had come upon Cornelius and his household. It’s painful to let go of the old, familiar ways and all those cherished prejudices. But that’s what happens with the One who makes all things new. All things really are new.
No, it wouldn’t be good to write a book about pregnancy and leave out the last two chapters. What would be the point of that? If it doesn’t end with birth, in spite of all the pain and patient endurance, what was the point of it all? With pregnancy, as with life itself, it’s the whole thing or nothing. You have to embrace all of it. And so it is also with the Christian life of faith - it has one foot in Good Friday, the other in Easter Sunday. The cross and resurrection are together. The early church wrestled a bit with the book of the Revelation. Not all the churches recognized or used it. But in the end, the last book of the last chapters had to be there, to give us something to look toward and to remind us the Death gives way to Life in the Lion-Lamb named Jesus.
John saw a new heaven and a new earth, a new creation. The old had passed away. Died. The sea, a symbol of Death and hell and the chaotic forces of evil, was no more. Jerusalem looked like she never looked in this life - a beautiful and radiant city looking like a bride on her wedding day coming down the aisle to meet her groom. John heard a voice declaring God’s dwelling with man. What is now true in Christ is then true to the nth degree, and all the tears shed in this life, and all the death with its weeping and pain and mourning are gone.
This is written for you, for your blessing, to assure you that this time of sorrow and patient endurance is short, and it gives way to a joy that has no end, a joy that no one can take from you. The apostle Paul wrote in the book of Romans, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” He, and we, have something to look forward to: the redemption and resurrection of our bodies. The whole creation longs for it with eager expectation like an expectant mother. There is joy to come, dear baptized believer. Now there may be sorrow, but there is joy to come. There may be trials and testing, but there is joy to come. There may be suffering and pain and tears, but there is joy to come. Wait patiently, wait hopefully, wait expectantly, wait faithfully. There is joy to come in Jesus, and no one can take that joy from you.
“Behold, I make all things new.” A new heavens, a new earth, a new creation , a new you.
In the name of Jesus, Amen
|
.jpg)
