Rejoice. It’s Just a Little While
John 16:16–22
May 11, 2025 anno Domini
Don’t tell your wife in the 14th hour of labor, “Rejoice honey, labor only lasts a little while.”
Don’t tell someone with cancer or anxiety, “Don’t worry. It’s just a little while.”
Don’t tell the 12 disciples that the death of Jesus will only take their Savior for a little while.
Don’t say, “Rejoice, it’s just a little while” unless you are Jesus. Jesus can say “a little while” because He knows not only your suffering and your death, but He knows the outcome for you who believe.
Jesus can say “a little while” because He rules the world and the times and seasons are in His hands. He can say “a little while” because He knows you better than you know yourself, after all you were created through Him and for Him and He has redeemed you for Himself.
It’s the fourth Sunday of Easter, but the text is from the fourth day before Easter. It’s Thursday night in John 16, the Thursday night on which Jesus is betrayed. He is preparing His disciples for the little while between His death and resurrection, and the little while between His ascension and His return.
Jesus prepares His men for the little while of their suffering by loving them, by washing their feet, by serving them, to show them the kind of God and Lord He is. We don’t have a Lord who demands everything of us before He even looks our way. We have a Lord who uses His Divine power and might to serve us, show us mercy, wash us clean of sin. Jesus prepares them for a little while by giving them His body and His blood under the bread and and wine.
He does the same for you. Christ’s living and risen body and blood are put on your tongue, poured down your throat, and with that you have everything Jesus won for you – His forgiveness, life eternal, the hope of the resurrection. These gifts from Him are your sustenance and strength in this little while of suffering and sorrow.
Jesus can say “a little while” because He suffered eternally and died eternally on the cross. When Christ hung in our place and experienced the Father’s wrath for our sins, He took all our punishment, the whole length and breadth and depth of death and hell. He may have hung for only hours on the cross – what appeared a little while, but He suffered all that our sins deserve – the hell of being cast off by His Father.
Jesus can say a “little while” because He knows how it ends. As Mary watched her son suffer on the cross it wasn’t a little while to her eyes and her mother’s heart. For the disciples it was only 36 hours between the death of Jesus and the first reports of His resurrection, but before they saw Him with their own eyes, you could not have convinced them it was a little while.
But when Jesus rose, when He appeared to them, when they saw Him, heard, touched Him, their grief over the weekend disappeared, the long hours of suffering were a distant memory. Their joy in the resurrected Christ overtook and destroyed their suffering. As time passed, they might have even joked over their long weekend, “Oh that, that was nothin’.”
That is what you will say, when this little while is over. Don’t believe me. Believe Jesus. Jesus promises. He tells us exactly what will happen to the disciples and us – for them in the “little while” between His death and resurrection and for us in the little while between His ascension and His return, for the little while we are living in right now. You will have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
Don’t be surprised by suffering or sorrow. You know the reason for your grief. God has told you. God’s creation has been broken by sin. His good orderly world is made chaotic by evil. You yourself contribute to the chaos. Sometimes you suffer for what you did. Sometimes you suffer because you believe in Christ. Sometimes there is no apparent reason for your suffering.
In the middle of this text Jesus gives one of His “truly, truly” statements. St. John is the only Gospel writer to record these “truly, truly” sayings of Jesus. In the King James it is “Verily, verily.” In the Greek it is “Amen, Amen” literally, “yes, yes.” Maybe this is where Martin Luther got his phrase, “This is most certainly true.” When you hear Jesus say, “truly, truly” open the ears of your faith and hold on to whatever Jesus says next with all your heart. Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.
In those 36 hours between Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Jewish leaders rejoiced because that wannabe Messiah Jesus of Nazareth was dead. Their power was secure. The Devil and his demons went on a three-day bender celebrating what they thought was a world championship victory – evil and death beat good and life. If the disciples were out in public, they were scorned and mocked as fools for following Jesus.
This is what the world thinks of the faithful church of Jesus Christ. You are homophobic, misogynistic, racist, Islamophobic, intolerant, irrelevant, outdated, gullible, foolish, hateful and stupid for believing what God’s Word says. Why would you believe in Jesus when He tells you, “you will weep and lament, you will be sorrowful” while at the same time “the world,” those who do not believe will party and rejoice and prosper.
Why? Because Jesus said, “truly, truly … your sorrow will turn into joy… I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” Most of all our faith needs to cling to this truth from the mouth of Jesus. This will happen “in a little while.” How do you know? Because in a little while, about 36 hours, Jesus rose from the dead. And in a little while He will return to deliver us. And in a little while – seven days from now, He will return again in His risen body and blood, and with His Word, to keep us believing that it’s just a little while” till our sorrow will turn to joy. In the name of Jesus. Amen.