• "Your Sorrow Shall be Turned Into Joy"
• Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter
• May 2, 2004
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

For the next five Sundays, the gospel readings come from the Last Supper discourse of Jesus in chapters 14-17 of St. John's gospel. This is an extended discussion by Jesus about the implications of his death, resurrection and ascension.

Today's gospel focuses on curious statements about "a little while." Jesus said, "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me." When questioned, Jesus explained what he meant in terms of labor pains.

Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

One interpretation of this is as follows: On Good Friday the disciples were full of sorrow as Jesus was taken from them, publicly beaten and put to death on a cross, after which they did not see him. But Jesus appeared to them on Easter Day. They saw him again and their hearts rejoiced.

A second interpretation is to understand the "little while, and ye shall not see me" as referring to his ascension into heaven-after which they did not see him. The second "little while, and ye shall see me" would in this case be the Second Coming. This interpretation is made possible by Jesus' words, "because I go to the Father."

There is justification in the writings of St. John to see these interpretations as overlapping or parallel in a progressive sense. The sorrow of the crucifixion gave way to the joy of resurrection in somewhat the same manner as we expect the tribulation of this life (cf. John 16:33) to give way to joy when we see Jesus at the Second Coming (cf. 1 John 3:2).

Christianity is a religion of hopeful expectation. At each point in the revelation, believers are told to look forward, in sure and certain hope, to the promise of God. God called Israel out of Egypt and told her to look forward to many descendants and prosperity in the Promised Land. When unfaithfulness caused that hope to wane, God told Israel to look forward to the coming of the Messiah.

Jesus, the Messiah, came and proclaimed that God's kingdom was present, but he pointed forward to the Cross and the Resurrection. The risen Christ appeared in victory, but told the disciples to look forward to the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came in fulfillment of the promise but he puts within us the longing for the return of Christ and the consummation of all things.

At each point in this hopeful progression there is some measure of pain and tribulation. The pain, the tribulation, results from the gap that exists between the current measure of God's presence and blessing and the future promise of complete fulfillment. The future hope, the new life, is achieved only through the pain of labor.

The image of childbirth is constantly associated in the Bible with God's work of redemption. Genesis 3 tells us that the consequence of the Original Sin for woman was an increase in the pain of childbearing. But Genesis 3 also tells us that woman will give birth to the savior who will crush the head of the serpent. From the pain of labor will come the birth of the Messiah.

In Isaiah 26, a famous prophecy of resurrection is preceded by a reference to the pains of childbirth. "As a woman with child is in pain and cries out in her pangs, when she draws near the time of her delivery, so have we been in Your sight, O LORD" (26:17 NKJV). Then, a little later, Isaiah proclaims, "Your dead shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise" (26:19).

Revelation 12 describes, "A woman clothed with the sun" who "being with child... cried out in labor and in pain to give birth... She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations."

The pain of labor in these passages points to the resurrection from the dead. Jesus was, indeed, born of the Virgin Mary. But Colossians also describes Jesus as "the firstborn of the dead" (1:18). We participate in the resurrection through baptism, in which, dying and rising with Christ, we are "born again."

In one sense we are born again already, but in another sense the life of Christ is still being formed in us, as a child is formed in the womb. St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." The life of Christ is growing within us and it will come to full birth at the resurrection.

St. Paul states this clearly in a passage in Romans, in which he expands the image of childbirth to the Creation as a whole. He writes, "The whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. And only they, 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" (8:22-3).

Thus, the image of childbirth illustrates how the resurrection of Jesus has transformed the way we experience pain. Apart from Jesus, the pain we experience in the world is the pain of death. Apart from Christ, pain reminds us of the Fall, of the futility of life in this world and of our appointment with the grave. But, in Christ, our pain becomes the pain of birth. In Christ, our tribulation points to the hope we have beyond the grave. In Christ, pain is the very means through which we grow in virtue and holiness.

"A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me." For the first disciples, this meant that the pain of Good Friday would become the joy of Easter. For us, it means that the tribulation of this life will give way to the joy of resurrection when Jesus comes again. For us it means, as Colossians says, "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (1:27).