Rejoice in the Savior you see—and will see.

Sermon for Easter 4, Jubilate, May 12, 2019

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

John 16:16-23  ¹⁶“In a little while you are not going to see me anymore, and again in a little while you will see me, because I am going away to the Father.”  ¹⁷Therefore some of his disciples asked one another, “What does he mean when he tells us, ‘In a little while you are not going to see me, and again in a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going away to the Father’?”  ¹⁸So they kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’?  We don’t understand what he’s saying.”  ¹⁹Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you trying to determine with one another what I meant by saying, ‘In a little while you are not going to see me, and again in a little while you will see me’?  ²⁰Amen, Amen, I tell you: You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice.  You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.  ²¹A woman giving birth has pain, because her time has come.  But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of her joy that a person has been born into the world.  ²²“So you also have sorrow now.  But I will see you again.  Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.  ²³In that day you will not ask me anything.  Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.” (EHV)

Rejoice in the Savior you see—and will see.

Dear friends in Christ,

            Before we consider our sermon text, I would like you all to think about the roller coaster of emotions Jesus’ disciples experienced in only a six-week period.  Our text is part of some of the last things Jesus said to His disciples before He was betrayed into the hands of those who would kill Him.  Just a few days earlier, Jesus had been welcomed into Jerusalem with a grand, spontaneous parade.  To the disciples, it had to feel like a victory celebration, the beginning of a great kingdom, which in fact, was what they expected to see.  Yet, just a few hours after He spoke the words of our text, Jesus was arrested by the local authorities, put through a humiliating trial, was tortured and crucified, and by the end of the day laid dead in a tomb, and the disciples were convinced all was lost.  They were heart-broken, scared, and lost in confusion about what would happen next. 

From that deep, dark low, the emotions of Jesus’ followers were elevated to the highest heights, just three days later, as Jesus rose from the grave alive once more.  Maybe now He would take up His reign over Israel, they thought.  Yet, 40 days after rising from the dead, instead of beginning a reign on earth, Jesus ascended before their very eyes into heaven.  One might expect that their hopes were again dashed, but we find out that wasn’t the case, for in fact, St. Luke reports that after Jesus was “taken up into heaven…they worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” (Luke 24:51-52 NIV 84)  So, what had changed for Jesus’ disciples?  They now had a better understanding of what Jesus was about, and what our lives as Christians will be, and our encouragement is this: Rejoice in the Savior you see—and will see.

Jesus’ words that last night left His disciples bewildered for a time.  He said, “In a little while you are not going to see me anymore, and again in a little while you will see me, because I am going away to the Father,” and they couldn’t understand it.  Why would He go away?  And if He was going to the Father, why would He come back?  And, what is this little while?  How could Jesus begin His reign over Judea if He went away?  They just didn’t understand.

There are several things that confused the disciples.  First off, they didn’t yet understand the nature of Jesus’ kingdom.  Christ’s kingdom isn’t a place on earth.  Rather, it’s in the hearts and minds of those who believe in Him and its ultimate home is heaven.  They thought Jesus would conquer His enemies by force, but He would conquer with humility, obedience, and His own death.  The time frame for everything was totally bewildering to those who heard Jesus speak, and maybe it is for us today as well.

We too might wonder why Jesus leaves us here on earth to deal with all the problems of life in a sinful world when He has guaranteed us a home in heaven.  If we have a home in heaven, why doesn’t He just take us there right now?  While we are asking, if Jesus rules the world for our good, as He promises, why do we still have trouble?  And, if He promises He will never leave us, why can’t we see Jesus right now?  Oh, the questions that trouble us, especially when the world seems cruel.

What those first disciples didn’t yet see was that Jesus had to go away to suffer and die for our sins so that He could open the gates of heaven and slam shut the door of the devil’s prison.  But, what they learned over those forty days between Jesus’ resurrection and His ascension is that all of this is in the Father’s plan to rescue all the souls He has elected to believe and be saved. 

Jesus didn’t come into this world to save only a few of those alive when He walked the streets of Judea.  Jesus didn’t enter into His passion for only those who are blood relatives of Abraham.  Rather, Jesus entered this world to live for all people everywhere of every place and time.  And Jesus died for the same.  Christ gave up His life on the cross for Adam and Eve, for Cain and Abel, for Moses and all the descendants of Abraham, for you and me and every man, woman, and child, who has ever lived, or ever will.  In order to accomplish all of that, Jesus would have to do everything exactly according to His Father’s will—and He did!

Now, what does this all mean for you and me?  In God’s infinite wisdom, we don’t get to see Jesus face to face on a daily basis, but we do get to see Him, even now.  Still, there is something more and better yet to come.  Jesus explained to His disciples, “You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice.  You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.”  The world is all those powers and people who reject Jesus as true God and Savior.  Christ’s enemies likely celebrated while He lay dead in the tomb because they thought they had defeated the One who troubled their consciences with guilt.  The devil may actually have hoped he had defeated God in that chess match for the ages. 

Meanwhile, throughout the days Jesus lay dead in the tomb, the disciples were in agony and the depths of grief, but on Easter it all changed for everybody.  No longer could the devil gloat—his head was crushed as Jesus rose to life again and condemned Satan to eternal prison.  The Jewish leadership still didn’t accept Jesus, so they spent the rest of their days trying to flee from God’s wrath by persecuting those who followed Jesus.  It cost those leaders their city, their temple, their physical freedom, and ultimately their eternal lives.

But Jesus disciples?  They could rejoice no matter what happened in this world.  They now understood, by the power of the Holy Spirit, what Jesus had done for them and for all.  Jesus didn’t start a kingdom here on earth; instead, He opened the gates to paradise.  Therefore, even today, while the unbelieving world may gloat and grin over whatever momentary, supposed victories they might think they have, Christians can truly rejoice because those momentary trials fade in comparison to the eternal victory that is already ours, bought and paid for by the blood of God’s Son.

I said, Rejoice in the Savior you see—and will see.  Like the disciples back then, we don’t get to see Jesus physically all the time, but we do get to see Him even now.  We see Jesus in His Word that assures us that our sins are forgiven for the sake of His suffering and death on our behalf.  We get to see Jesus’s power as the Holy Spirit works faith and life in a new child of God in Baptism.  We get to see Jesus as He places His precious body and blood on our tongues every time we come into His presence in the Lord’s Supper.  Yes, here, today, we meet Jesus again in the bread and wine.  Here in His supper, Jesus is present for us in time and space as He assures us that His sacrifice wiped away our sin and reconciled us with God.  By His wounds we are healed. 

And yet, compared to the hardships and challenges of life in a sinful, broken world, it doesn’t always feel like enough, does it?  Knowing that God has promised us Paradise, we want to be there with Jesus in person every moment, don’t we?  And, we want to see that soon.  And, that’s okay.  We should want to be with our Lord forever.  And, we will be. 

The church fathers called this Sunday of the church year, Jubilate!  It means rejoice with a shout.  Why should we rejoice?  I find it interesting that the illustration Jesus uses comes to us on Mother’s Day.  Surely of all people, the mothers among us know what He meant.  Jesus told them, “A woman giving birth has pain, because her time has come.  But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of her joy that a person has been born into the world.  So you also have sorrow now.  But I will see you again.  Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” 

I don’t think there is a woman here who would say that her pregnancy, labor, and delivery was without difficulty and pain.  But, do you remember the moment they laid that new child on your chest?  All you could feel in that moment was the joy of new life.  Likewise, while we labor here on earth for our Savior and God, we will have trouble.  We will experience hardship, pain, difficult labor, maybe even persecution and rejection by those who hate the God who saves.  But, at the end of our labors is life everlasting—in a place where there will never again be any sorrow, or trouble, or hardship, or sin, or death.  There, we will see Jesus face to face for the unending eternities of the glory of heaven. 

How do we know this?  Because Jesus has always fulfilled every promise He and His Father made, right down to the last letter of all prophecy, and He has promised that He will return to judge the world (all that has rejected Him) and to take us home to be with Him forever.  Jesus says, “I will see you again.  Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

So, where does this leave us for today?  We are not alone, and we are not abandoned by the Savior who won our freedom from death and the devil.  Instead, Christ assures us that He hears our prayers, and the Father will answer them.  In fact, Jesus promises, “In that day you will not ask me anything.  Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.”  Whatever we ask from God, in accord with our holy Savior, will be granted to us.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that foolish prayers will be answered in the affirmative.  God loves His children too much to let them have what will hurt them.  But whatever we need for body and life He graciously grants and gives—usually even before we ask.  Still, we know that God hears us.  He loves us.  He has a home in heaven prepared for us by the Son who gave His life so that we could live.

Dear Christian friends, rejoice!  Today and every day, rejoice for the victory that is yours, for the forgiveness of all sin, for the life that is already yours but you have to wait a while to see.  Rejoice for the love of God that sent His Son to die on a cross so that your sorrows and pains will be turned to joy never ending.  Rejoice in the Savior you see—and will see.  Amen.

Now to the King eternal, to the immortal, invisible, only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.  Amen.