“Waiting for Delivery”
St. John 16:16-22
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. John 16:21-22 [Jesus said] “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, you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… In today’s Gospel our Lord Jesus compares the experience of a believer in this world to a woman in labor. He reminds us that being a Christian is not all smooth sailing. There will be pain; there will be sorrow; there will be heartache; there will be sickness; there will be suffering; there will be death. But in the end, all of that sorrow and pain and heartache and suffering and sickness and death – all of it will be turned to joy, in the same way that a mother’s anguish gives way to joy when her child is born.
Very often we forget that this is the way the Christian life works. We are tempted to think that being a Christian means being blessed by God all the time. To be sure, even the troubles that come our way by God’s allowance are to be received as blessings. St. Paul wrote to the Christains in Rome, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28). So, in that sense we are blessed all the time. But sometimes we are easily tricked into believing that the Christian should always be free from all worry, all hassles, all pain, and all conflict. And if we are experiencing those things, then we must not be true Christians, our faith must be weak, or God must have left us or stopped loving us.
But that is a lie from the pit of hell. The truth is that the Christian life is a mixture of fear and love, of weeping and laughing, of heartache and gladness, of sorrow and joy, of insecurity and confidence. In this life we experience the cross and suffering more often than not, while the fullness of peace, contentment, and happiness is reserved for the life of the world to come.
Those are not exactly the words you want to hear. You want to hear that life in Christ is a life of ease. You want to hear that being a Christian means that you will be treated fairly. You want to hear that others will always love you. You want to hear that life’s bumps won’t be all that hard. You want what is to come, and that’s OK, and you want it NOW!
And because you want to hear all those things, you do whatever you can to avoid the cross in your lives. You take the path of least resistance. You dodge the harder parts of your vocations. You stay away from conflict, even if it means failing to speak the truth you believe as a Christian. You compromise the faith – or worse yet remain silent about it – in order to keep peace and to avoid any negative consequences among co-workers, friends, or family. Rather than receiving hardship and affliction as a gift of God that kills your Old Adam, works for your good, and strengthens your faith, you fight against it, you assert your rights, and you retaliate.
In today’s Epistle Peter tells servants to be submissive to their masters, not only to the good and gentle ones, but also to those who are harsh. He tells them that it is commendable before God for them to do good and take their suffering patiently. I wonder how many of you have taken that approach with your employers or in any of your other relationships for that matter.
Dear friends, the cross and the resurrection are the very things that define your life and destiny as a believer. That is what Jesus is saying to His disciples in the upper room on this night before His death. “Don’t be surprised at the fiery trials that will come upon you as if this were something strange. For I am about to go the cross to suffer your sins to death in My body and win your full and free forgiveness. And you are my followers. You are one with me. You are baptized into Me. And so you are given to carry My suffering and death in your bodies, in order that you might also carry in your bodies My life and the relief and comfort that only I can give. So blessed are you who mourn, for you will be comforted. Blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for yours in the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus says, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again, a little while, and you will see Me.” There will be those “little whiles” when you cannot seem to see Jesus – when life is fierce, when the world seems to be laughing at you, when you are sharing in the trials of your Lord. But He reminds you here, “It really is only a little while that you must endure. That pain, that disease, that heartache, that difficult situation is almost over. Just hang on, hang on to Me. Trust in Me to pull you through it. It may seem like an eternity, but your Easter is coming. The psalmist writes, “Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Ps 30:5).
Again, it is like a pregnant woman awaiting the time of her delivery. In many other situations nine months may not ordinarily seem like all that long. But those latter days of pregnancy, in the 8th and 9th months, those days can sometimes seem to take forever – especially if the back and legs are aching or the weather is hot or you can’t get comfortable or you can’t sleep or you’re on bed rest for medical reasons and you’re about to lose your sanity because of boredom and the slow motion of time. But inevitably, the time does come, the little while is finally over, the little one is born. And then all of what the mother has endured proves to be more than worth it in the end and the waiting doesn’t seem to have been quite so bad in retrospect.
That is the way it is for you as you await the final delivery on the Last Day. You were conceived and given new life in the womb of the church by water and the Word in Holy Baptism. Having been baptized you are continually nourished through your holy mother the Church by preaching, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. You are given to grow and mature in the faith like a developing unborn child.
But there are times when things get a little uncomfortable in this womb, especially as the end nears. And the “labor” of this life can be very traumatic. It seems to come in wave after overwhelming wave. It seems like you can’t go on anymore. But then comes the delivery of the new life. Then comes your deliverance into the resurrection of the body on the Last Day. And what occurred before disappears in an instant, and there is nothing but fullness of joy in the eternal presence of Christ.
This final deliverance is what Jesus wants you to focus on and on which to fix your hearts. Do not bow to the temptations of the devil and the world and your flesh. Do not give up on Christ; do not surrender to the moment. Rather, trust in your Lord Jesus to carry you through, for He has in fact already carried you through by His dying and rising again. And He has promised to bring you to Himself and relieve you of this earthly and sinful life. He has already conquered everything that weighs you down.
And now it is only just a matter of time for that victory to be revealed. It is only a little while more, and then comes the forever, the perfect happiness and completeness that comes with being in your Lord’s eternal presence. Then comes the fullness of the peace that passes all understanding. Then comes the time when “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18), the glory you already possess by faith in Christ.
No, dear friends, you cannot see all of that now, but you will. All of those who by faith believe in Jesus will see it all. And that divine vision will make all the difference for you. We read in I John, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when (Jesus) is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (I John 3:2). Christ will transform you to be like Himself. Just as you are like Him in this world, partaking of His cross, so also you will be just like Christ in the world to come, partaking bodily of His divine nature and glory. You do not know exactly what that will be like. But you know that it will be more awesome than you could ever imagine.
Think of it this way: If an unborn child had the capacity to communicate with those outside the womb, it would probably find it difficult to imagine what it hears about its future existence on earth. All the reports about light, space, stars, mountains, trees, skyscrapers, and so forth might in fact seem too good to be true. Only at the time of birth and afterwards does the child learn how gloriously true it all is.
So also you, dear Christian, you who still live in the womb of time and of the church, may indeed find it difficult not only to imagine but even sometimes to believe the glowing accounts in God’s Word about our future heavenly existence – the promises of resurrection and eternal life, likeness to Christ, dwelling with the angels in the unspeakable beauty of the city of God, and so forth. But on the day of Christ’s return, you will be overwhelmed with the wonderful reality of it all beyond your wildest dreams. It will be your birth and delivery into the new creation.
Jesus said, “You now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” This joy is grounded in Jesus, whose birth into this world overcomes the curse of the woman’s birth pain and whose resurrection from the dead brings us immortality. Remember Jesus’ words, “I will see you again.” What greater joy could there be than that – to be seen and known and embraced by your Savior?
So do not lose heart. For, as St. Paul says, “even though your outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For your light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (II Corinthians 4:16-18)
And what is most eternal and true and sure for you are Christ’s words and His unseen but very real and present body and blood in His Supper. Those are the things which will see you through from this life to the life of the world to come. And your Lord gives them to you for the taking in order to settle you and strengthen you for this little while.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
