Sermon - Jubilate 2020 - John 16:16-22

Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” That’s probably not the exact promise you would like to hear from our Lord today, but there it is anyways. In this life we will weep, lament, and be sorrowful, but only so that we might have joy in heaven.

Often we probably try to ignore Jesus on this subject of suffering, or His words simply fall on deaf ears. And as Americans living here for the past 50 years, life has really been quite comfortable and relatively safe. War, pestilence, and famine have been far removed from us, relegated to 3rd world countries. We just watch documentaries about those things from our comfortable leather couches. For those reasons, it does seem as though the Corona Crisis has awakened us to this reality of suffering that Christ promises.

In the first place, the virus has given us cause to reflect upon the fact that we and people we know and love could die, seemingly randomly, just by going to the grocery store and contracting a virus. Our bodies, which we really do rather enjoy and take pride in, aren’t quite as invincible and powerful as we might wish. Death at any moment is lurking unseen right around the corner, and it could strike me; that’s a frightening thought.

Secondly, this Corona Crisis has given us cause to doubt the permanency of our American freedoms. Not only were the governors quick to take away freedoms from the people, but more alarmingly was how quickly and willingly people were to hand those freedoms over. It doesn’t take much imagination to perceive how our freedoms could be lost on a more permanent basis and for us to fall into a much more tyrannical form of governance. What Peter says is perhaps not so far flung from what we could face one day here in the US: “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.” 

Our Lord promises us that we will suffer in this life, we will bear our crosses, and the Corona Crisis perhaps makes this feel a little more real and probable. With that in mind, we would do well to anticipate suffering not with so much fear and dread, but with hope! Consider what Christ compares our earthly suffering to: “When a woman is giving birth, 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 human being has been born into the world.”

The anguish a mother experiences in childbirth is a very real suffering. When Christ was speaking, they didn’t have any good pain killers or numbing agents for child birth as we do today. More than that, the death rate for mothers giving birth was exceedingly higher than it is today! That physical and emotional suffering is the context within which Christ spoke those words. 

But even in those days, as in today, the pain of childbirth is a good sort of pain because of what results from it. The pain of a toothache can leave you getting a tooth extracted, or the pain of an infected sore can leave you getting a limb amputated. But the pain of birth leaves you with the treasured gift of a child in your arms! The suffering led towards something good! Likewise, the sorrow and crosses we must bear in this life leave us with joy.

How? How is it that sorrows and lamentations will lead us to rejoice? First we need to consider our natural state in this life. At birth on account of our sin we are like a lump of clay, not good for growing things in nor much to look at. But God is the Divine Potter, who takes the worthless lump of clay and fashions it into a beautiful treasure! 

We are like a stone in the field, good for nothing but to be rejected by the farmer and thrown into a rock pile. But God is the Master Carver, and in His sight we are chosen and precious. He molds and carves us into living stones, built up as a spiritual house upon Christ the cornerstone. 

Before rocks and clay can be used for a building, they first need to be chiseled or molded, polished or baked. The more valuable, endurable, and beautiful the end result, the more work must be done to them. Likewise, we Christians before we can be built up into the house of God, built upon Christ our cornerstone, we need to be shaped and molded, carved and polished, baked in a kiln, prepared by cross and sorrow, and then we’re fit for construction.

By Christ’s suffering our sins were forgiven and we were welcomed into God's heavenly abode. Through our earthly sufferings we are being shaped into the form of Christ who suffered for us. For those who want to live godly lives in Christ Jesus have to suffer persecutions. For those whom the Lord loves, He chastises them. Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

The end and goal of all of the suffering we must face in this life leads us to an everlasting, joy-filled, new beginning! “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” Therefore, whenever you must suffer, count it all as gain in Christ and rejoice in the fact that God is preparing you for an eternity of neverending joy! This present suffering is like the labor pains of a mother, and soon the suffering shall give birth to joy!

Meanwhile, take heart and comfort in that God knows you are suffering. He knows the specifics of your sorrows and why you weep. Since God is aware of them, and He’s in control of all things, it means that God has your sufferings under control. Just as Christ knows the thoughts and worries of His disciples, so does He know your every thought and worry. Be assured that God does love you and He promises that your every sorrow will be turned to joy in the resurrection. The world may rejoice over your sufferings, but take heart, Christ has overcome both the world and your sufferings.

Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!