Your pain will turn to joy
John 16:16-24
16 ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.’ 17 Then some of his disciples said to one another, ‘What does he mean by saying to us, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me”; and “Because I am going to the Father”?’ 18 They said, ‘What does he mean by this “a little while”? We do not know what he is talking about.’ 19 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, ‘Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me”? 20 Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. 21 When a woman is in labour, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. 22 So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23 On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
The passage opens with a seeming riddle – “you won’t see me, then you will see me”, and the disciples are very confused. So, Jesus unpacks what he is saying.
There is a time coming, Jesus says, which is in the immediate future, when the disciples will “weep and mourn”, they will “have pain”; while the “world” will rejoice. That is, Jesus’ death will bring great sorrow to some (those who follow Jesus) and great joy to others (those who hated Jesus and his way – thinking back to the end of chap. 15 and the first part of chap. 16). But Jesus states that these are both temporary situations, the sorrow will turn to joy – the pain will be replaced by rejoicing, replaced by a joy that nothing can take away. The joy of Jesus’ resurrection will change everything.
What Jesus said to his followers back then, applies to us today. We know about the pain and sorrow of this world, the ways in which the forces of destruction and despair, of anger and alienation, have wrecked havoc in the world. There is a pain we carry inside of us, that the world is not the way it is supposed to be, there is something wrong and humanity is unable to fix it. But in Jesus’ resurrection hope has come to our world, a hope that things can change, that the destruction caused by the powers of this world can be undone. That there is a new world coming. Jesus will come again defying all the powers and plans of human beings. The new will be all of God’s doing, just as the resurrection was.
PRAYER:
Lord God, we know well the pain of grief and sorrow. We know well the hopelessness of despair at a world that is not as it should be. Remind us again of your coming kingdom which we begin to see in the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.