Jubilate—A Little While: The Sorrow That Gives Way to Joy
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
"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."
Happy Mother's Day!
It's not on purpose that the Gospel reading was that; it just happened to fall that way this year, but it's pretty fitting, isn't it? With an illustration such as the Lord speaks to us today, it is important to set limits. What does the Lord mean, and what doesn't He mean?
First, you've got to realize that He is speaking of childbirth in a time without epidurals and other anesthetics as we have today. He is also speaking of childbirth in a time where there wasn't really anything to be done when major complications took place. No prenatal surgery or ultrasounds that could diagnose such a thing, or genetic tests. No surgery, really. No C-sections, emergency or elective. No inductions, emergency or elective.
Childbirth today still involves suffering and even death. I would be wrong-and I'd be scared-going home to say that it's easier, you've got it easy now, but back then, that's not the point I'm making here. Suffering and death still happen today in childbirth. God's words spoken to Eve, those words still ring true today from Genesis 3:16, where He says, "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children." Still true today.
But imagine what it was like when Jesus spoke those words as an illustration. If we think of all that can go wrong when a woman's hour has come to give birth, now what all can go wrong, and how difficult it is now-how much more must the disciples have thought this? And of course, Jesus, knowing all things, how much more aware of all that could go wrong is our Lord. Not just what the disciples probably saw and experienced in their own life, but even at the atomic level, what our Lord knows about conception and birth.
When we hear the illustration, we can think, "Well, what about women who are never able to conceive? What about women who never get to see their baby born alive? What about women whose baby needs immediate medical attention after birth? What about women whose children don't survive to adulthood? What about women who outlive their children? What about women whose children depart from the Orthodox and true Christian faith?" When we do this, when we ask those what-ifs, or you might as a mother be thinking, "Well, it was kind of joyful, but then this, this, and this happened right after I gave birth to this kid." When you start thinking that way, you're going beyond the point of comparison.
Jesus is telling each of you today that the suffering, affliction, and tribulation you endure in life is like a woman whose hour has come to give birth-like that woman who has sorrow because the time has come, and it is painful and difficult. The suffering and tribulation you endure is like when that mother, suffering that pain and enduring that weeping and lamenting, has once delivered the baby safely and is holding that precious child in her arms, isn't thinking anymore about the fear, the sorrow, the anguish, because of the joy that a human being has been brought into the world. He is saying that is what your tribulation is like-that comparison.
Of course, it is true that childbirth doesn't always work out that way, but this isn't Jesus' point. His point is that even when Christian women suffer grief and sorrow-the grief and sorrow of losing their child in conception or the birthing process-that particular suffering is like His description of the woman whose hour has come to give birth. Whatever affliction and testing comes upon the Christian, whether associated with our children, or the Lord's withholding of the gift of children, or some other painful cross, today our Lord tells us, "A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore, like this, you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you."
When He speaks these words of the Gospel to His disciples, they have a double meaning. He speaks in our Gospel today of a "little while," and that first little while is His suffering and death, His three days in the tomb, and He is also speaking of His going to the Father in His ascension at the right hand of God. The disciples will weep and lament when they see their Lord arrested, beaten near to death, mocked; weep bitterly when they themselves deny Him three times; weep and lament when He's crowned with thorns and mocked by pagans; weep and lament when He's spat upon and mocked by the world, both Jew and Gentile, murdered on that cross and buried dead in the tomb.
And the world-they will rejoice, they will jeer at Him even as He writhes in agony on the cross in front of His blessed mother, who had her own joy when she saw that precious baby boy and her Lord born into this world and now sees Him naked on a cross, lamenting and crying out and being mocked. The world will rejoice at this, and all of that, that "little while," will take place just a few hours from the time that Jesus first speaks these words to His disciples. But He says they will only be for a little while, not forever-a little while.
Jesus, after laying down His life for His disciples, for His mother, for each of us, took it back up again. A little while He went to the Father to offer His blood that is unlike the blood of goats and bulls that cannot remove sin forever. He went to the Father and offered up His blood to the Father in the most holy place in heaven to secure an eternal redemption for us.
And after that little while of going to the Father, He comes back, and then His disciples see Him again-not dead but alive forever. He gave joy to Mary Magdalene and the other women who came in sorrow to that tomb and were perplexed to see it empty. He came and showed Himself to them bodily in the resurrection and brought them joy.
He gave joy to the disciples on that Emmaus Road. He gave joy to the disciples gathered in the upper room when Thomas wasn't there that first evening, that Easter evening. He gave joy to the disciples and to Thomas that next week.
And He gave joy to more than five hundred brothers, as St. Paul tells us, many of whom, when Paul was writing First Corinthians, were still alive, though many had fallen asleep. He gave them joy. The Lord rose from that little while of suffering and death to give the joy of His resurrection to those first eyewitnesses, and we share in that joy when we hear the account of these eyewitnesses in sacred Scripture and believe it in the heart.
But those disciples then, and us Christians now, must grapple with a second "little while" that our Lord intends in our Gospel-another little while that causes grief like the pains of childbirth. Our Lord has ascended to the right hand of the Father, and He stands before His Father at all times, still holding up His precious blood, pleading for us, interceding for us at all times, showing forth that covenant of grace in His blood to God-the blood that makes for our peace and everlasting salvation. That's what He has done in ascending to the right hand-the blood by which Christ has prepared our heavenly mansions.
And this is a great joy, but it also means that our Lord is not present in the same way that He was present amid the disciples, showing His wounds and speaking peace. They saw and believed. They touched and handled, John says in his first letter.
And we are those who have not seen and yet believe. The disciples all had to bear with that weeping and lamenting of this second little while. After the Lord rose from the dead, they still hoped that that would be the time that He would restore the kingdom to Israel, and that's why when they're there on the Mount of Olives and He's about to ascend, they ask Him, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and you will be My witnesses to all nations."
And then He was taken up, and the cloud received Him out of their sight. And then they had another little while. After this, the disciples did experience joy.
It wasn't like The Princess Bride-"Life is pain, and that's it, and anything different, someone's trying to sell you something." They experienced joy. You can read about it in the Acts of the Apostles.
They saw and performed great miracles by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit. They preached powerful sermons full of the Spirit of God and converted thousands, baptized thousands. They fed so many with the precious body and blood of Christ, and they received encouragement and help from their fellow believers countless times, even while some of them were in prison.
But they also suffered in that second little while. They suffered as ministers of God. Each of the apostles could have spoken these words of St. Paul to describe their own experience in that second little while:
"From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness-besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches."
They could have all said these things about their little while.
And we too must suffer. We must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. That is what Scripture tells us very clearly.
The world will rejoice. They will revel in the wealth, the notoriety, the comfort, and the pleasure this world has to offer. You will suffer loss, want, mockery, rejection.
Many people that you love will depart this life before you. They will. If they have not already, they will. Many people you love will depart from the true Christian faith. There are many things in this life that you will desire, even good things-like a child of your own, or a permanent church building, or a home that you own, with some land that your kids can play on-that your Lord may very well withhold from you in that second little while. Like a loving father giving cups of milk to his children, giving just a little bit to the toddler who's just learning how to drink in a big kid cup, and giving more to the grown one.
Many, if not all of you, have endured the cross so many times already and are still enduring it. But the Lord, even now, the Lord is giving you a taste of the promise He makes in our Gospel for today: "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."
Your Lord is in your midst now. You do not see Him as the disciples saw Him on that first Easter evening, and as you will see Him on that great and glorious last day. But He is here, and what He comes to give you brings joy to every Christian heart.
Right this moment, He takes you out of the crosses you must endure. When you walk out of this temporary sanctuary in which you have safety, those crosses that are going to be there on your lap again when you walk out these doors-He is taking you away from them for a moment to give you a taste of that joy in the heart. He takes you out of the world so that He can remind you why you will and must suffer as a Christian, to remind you why it is a good thing worth rejoicing over.
Your Lord wants to give you His word for when you are in that burning, fiery furnace of tribulation again. Carry these words of God, and whatever ones like them that you can find, carry them next time into that trial that you face. Words like these: "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." (James 1)
Or these words from Paul in Romans 8: "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope. But hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance."
Take words of God such as these, and any other ones you can find from God-these precious promises. Take them into your suffering and say them aloud concerning the suffering you're enduring. Take them with you into your next tribulation when you feel as though the Lord is out of sight, like the disciples standing on that mount when the Lord ascended. And remember that your Lord says, "In every place where I cause My name to be remembered, there I will come to My people and bless them." (Exodus 20:24)
"In every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to My people and bless them." You open those words up, and He does it. He says, "I will come to you, and you will rejoice in your heart, and that joy can't be taken from you."
He will give you a taste of it even now by those words. I'm not telling you a law of "read your Bible every day, you dirty rotten scoundrels." I'm telling you, when you are burning in that furnace and you think the Lord is out of sight, He is very near right in that moment. That's when you need to remember that He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and whoever hears My words and opens, I will come in and dine with them." And when He comes in and dines with you, like He is going to dine with us today, when He comes in and dines with you, He will remind you again. He will remind you again that it is only a little while that you have to suffer these things, and that He will see you again.
And when He comes and sees you again, He will give a joy to you in your heart that no one and nothing will ever be able to take away from you ever again. That is certainly true, and it is right there for us.
Let us pray. Lord God, heavenly Father, in Your fatherly goodness You allow Your children to come under Your chastening rod here on earth, that we may be like Your only Son in suffering here and in glory hereafter. Comfort us in temptations and afflictions by Your Holy Spirit, that we may not fall into despair, but that we may continually trust in Your Son’s promise that our trials will endure but a little while and will then be followed by eternal joy. In patient hope, help us overcome all evil and at last obtain eternal salvation; through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.
