Dennis Tuuri

As we just recited from Psalm 148, God is near to his people and as we just sang in an earlier song, as a father loves or pities his children, so the Lord God does us. We read of this closeness, the mechanism, the act by which this closeness was made effectual. And we read in today’s text of the father’s great love to us. The offering after the sermon correlates to the tribute offering of the Old Testament sacrificial system set up in Leviticus.

The tribute offering was grain that man did some work upon, the product of his labor, not just a raw grain, but it had to be cooked, fried, baked, something. And it represented the man’s work given as a tribute to God. And the specific Hebrew term that’s used to describe what we interpret or translate as the cereal offering, the actual Hebrew word means tribute. Tribute is a word that people would have to give money to a king that had conquered them.

In the context of our tribute offering, the offering in response to the word of God, it is a loving tax, so to speak, lovingly and joyfully paid to him. And if we understand today’s text and understand the great love that he has for us, then we’ll understand our proper response to that love is to love him with all that we have, including the giving of our substance to him.

Today’s text is found in John chapter 16, beginning at verse 16, reading through verse 28. And listen as we read this and you’ll notice some points of emphasis in the text that will dictate how we look at the various sections of this particular unit of scripture. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. John 16, beginning at verse 16, reading through verse 28.

“A little while and you will not see me and again a little while and you will see me because I go to the father. Then some of his disciples said among themselves, ‘What is this that he says to us, a little while and you will not see me? And again, a little while and you will see me and because I go to the father?’ They said, ‘Therefore, what is this that he says, a little while?’ We do not know what he is saying. Now Jesus knew that they desired to ask him, and he said to them, ‘Are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said?

A little while and you will not see me. And again, a little while and you will see me most assuredly, amen, amen. I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. 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 man 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. And in that day you will ask me nothing. Most assuredly, amen, amen. I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.

These things I have spoken to you in figurative language, but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.’”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who makes these things plain to us. We pray that you may indeed illumine this text, your understanding. May we grasp it, Father. May we understand intellectually, but more importantly spiritually the truths that are contained herein. May you use them, Lord God, to continue to transform and mature us that we might go from glory to glory in our love and praise for you. In Jesus’ name we ask you. Amen.

Please be seated.

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The Gospel of John is, of course, a very long discourse—the longest discourse in the Gospels—and it is filled with language that is not necessarily clear to us and repetitions that are not necessarily clear to us either. It’s a delight on my behalf, and I thank God for giving me time each week to study these texts out and to delight in the structure of them and the emphasis in them. And I’ll try to share that with you today and make this text as clear to you as possible.

This is a long set of discourses, but it has application throughout. We saw last week the importance of opening our mouth for Jesus. I wanted to write something about this and put it out to you all in email form, very brief this week. I didn’t prioritize it high enough to do it, but I want to encourage you—and I want to encourage you at least today from this pulpit—to open your mouth for Jesus. The way the Holy Spirit comes is to bring conviction to the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

And I’ve been riding the bus, you know, from Cammy to Oregon City several times a week, usually a couple times a week, opportunities to witness. How do we do that with complete strangers? And I really encourage myself this week to not just talk, you know, to say “God bless you” to people, but to try to get into conversations. The war, the pending war with Iraq, gives us a tremendous opportunity to talk a little bit about these things, to simply ask people what they think. I think to enter in discussions. I used that as an opening for discussion on the bus this week and spoke to a couple of young ladies about that and it gave me a chance. They asked what my opinion was and I said very simply that God is judging his enemies no matter who the enemies are. Judgment is a fact in the world because God judges those who are his enemies and Christ’s enemies. So it’s a tremendous opportunity the war.

Yesterday we had a seminar, some of us here, on films and movies. Provide probably the most normal process of dialogue and conversation that this culture has. Politics get into some of that, but people don’t like that much, but to sit down and talk about a movie they saw—this is pretty easy, and a lot of people want to talk about movies. And I talked about movies to these people on the bus as well in the trip. It’s a very easy way to think through if you understand what we were taught yesterday in terms of worldview conveying of worldviews. Movies provide this tremendous opportunity to us.

The question was asked in the question answer time last week: Why do I think that the Holy Spirit speaks primarily, not singularly but primarily, through the voice of his people?

Well, I think that because, as I mentioned last week in the question answer time, the text talks about the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples and then the effect upon the world. So I assume a connection there, and the connection seems to be buttressed before and after. The conviction of the world is description of the Spirit’s work in the disciples. We could have also—and I should have—to make it clearer, gone to the coming of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment on the day the Spirit comes in its fullness, the day of Pentecost.

How are those people cut to the quick and brought conviction of their own sin, the righteousness of Christ, and the resultant judgment that lay upon their heads? How were they brought to that conviction? They were brought to that conviction through the disciples opening their mouths about Jesus. Empowered by the spirit, the disciples speak the word, and that’s what produces the conviction in the world.

So we’re sent ones. Part of the mission that we’re trying to develop as a church is to make sure we all know that we have mission as we leave this church. And part of that mission absolutely requires us to speak up for Jesus and to understand that the spirit of God will work no matter how goofy you think you might be. You know, it’s interesting that I mentioned last week that some sermons of men you think were really used by God in tremendous ways—you read their sermons in the abstract, dry as dust. But the Lord God’s spirit is not confined to the particular style or ability of the person speaking. Our intent is to honor the Lord Jesus Christ and to bring conviction to this world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

That’s why I wear a collar most days here at the office, when I’m walking to and from the bus station, I’m walking around the neighborhood taking my walks. I have a collar. It’s opening my mouth, but it’s presenting again the fact that God has something to do with this world. And this is a God whose presence here is mediated by his people, and the collar is a representation of that.

So please pray and ask God to give you opportunity that you might open your mouth for Jesus this week in terms of these very historical events that are happening in Iraq. Maybe we don’t want to talk about specific policies, but at least we can bring to bear what we know, what the scriptures say about war and judgment and all those things. And certainly we can say, as I said last week, that Saddam Hussein is an evil man and the judgment of God will come upon him. All wrongs rather will be righted.

Now, the context where we’re at, and I wanted you to know, I’m doing a little introduction stuff here, but I wanted to stress that application from last week’s sermon. I also want to talk a little bit about where we’re at and where we’re going.

I took a day this week to sketch out my sermons for the next couple three months. Remember that John is called—we had a Bible trivia game the other night and said, “Which gospel is the spiritual gospel?” Well, the answer is the Gospel of John. The synoptics state a different perspective. Matthew, Mark, Luke—John has this big long discourse, big exposition on the spirit. It’s kind of the spiritual gospel.

And what it does is, it seems like from one perspective that we’re moving through water, food, and light in the first section. And now in this section, remember that we talked about it in terms of the temple imagery. And before you get into the Holy of Holies, in the holy place—to get into the holy place, you go through the altar first. That’s the side. You wash your hands. You get cleansed with water. Then you enter into the holy place. And in that holy place, there’s a table of showbread—food, distribution of food and drink to the people of God. And additionally in that holy place, there’s a lampstand overseeing the bread. And so you’ve got washing with water, food, and you’ve got light from this lampstand in the context of the holy place.

And we said that the first half of this gospel, we have lots of water imagery in the first few chapters. Then we have food imagery with Jesus feeds the 5,000 and the woman taken in adultery and all that. Some food references. And then we got to the place where Jesus said, you know, he said he was bread for the world. Then he said he was the light of the world. So he moved through water, food and then light imagery.

And in this text in John 13–17, we have that same kind of thing going on. We began with water. We didn’t begin with the food. We began with the washing of feet. And one reason is because that maintains the same image. We’ll see when we get finally on Easter Sunday, we’re going to enter the garden with Christ where he’s going to be arrested. That’s where we’re going to be on Easter Sunday. But before he gets into that garden, he crosses a brook. He goes across water before he gets to the garden. And that’s very important. And we’ll talk about that Easter Sunday morning.

So this is the way this section also moves in terms of the temple. And we’re moving not just to the holy place. We’re moving to the Holy of Holies, right? Because ultimately that’s where the blood is applied on the Day of Atonement. That’s what provides full atonement for sins. And that’s where we’re moving in this gospel.

Now, when we get there, it doesn’t just end with the description of the light of the Holy Spirit in the upper room discourse. He then prays for his disciples. There’s no such prayer for those who reject him. Now, the third element of furniture in the holy place is the golden altar of incense. And so it’s like incense going up, which scriptures connect in various ways to the prayers of the people. So for the disciples, we go through the washing, we go through the feeding, we go through the description of light—that we are all these things as well in Christ. And then there’s the high priestly prayer for us in John 17.

We’ll get to that two weeks from today. And we’ll talk about it in three sections: Jesus prays for himself. Then he prays for the immediate disciples who are with him. And then he prays for us who have believed based on their word. In the holy place, when the high priest entered in once a year on the Day of Atonement into the Holy of Holies, there was an offering he would give for himself. He would give an offering then for his family and then he would have a separate offering for the sins of the people.

You see, so our Savior is the high priest moving toward his work. When he’ll apply blood for us at the Holy of Holies, moving there through the temple furniture, moving there through water, food, light, and then the prayers and the golden altar of incense. And then he’ll go to make atonement for our sins and that’ll be applied, you know, in the Holy of Holies in heaven.

Now we’ll see this as well when we get to the description of this in a couple of months—the resurrection. We’ll see angels on either side of where Jesus had laid, the same way the angels guard over, so to speak, establish the mercy seat of God, the throne of God. So there’s direct temple imagery.

So that’s where we’re moving here. We’re going back through the same sort of things. We’re now at that light portion of the movement of this discourse. Next week, we’ll conclude the upper room discourse. Two weeks from today, we’ll begin the actual high priestly prayer. We’ll go through it in that same order I mentioned: first for the high priest himself, then for his immediate family, the disciples, and then for all the people who are part of God’s people. And then Easter Sunday, we’ll go into the garden. And we’ll look at the betrayal in the garden and the reversal of that affected by our Savior.

So that’s the progression of where we’re going here.

And what we’ve said is that this upper room discourse could be seen somewhat chiastically. There’s a gathering scene at the beginning with the washing of the feet and that correlates to Jesus’s prayer for the disciples at the end. And in the middle, there were these descriptions of troubling encounters with descriptions of betrayal. Remember, right after the feet washing, there’s a description of how they’re going to have trouble. And then Peter’s denial is foretold by the Savior. And what we’ll see next week is just before we get to the final gathering in prayer for God’s people, we’ll see the abandonment of the disciples will also be predicted by our Savior.

So they match up. The section we’re at today matches up with the assurance of the Father’s power in the midst of persecution from the world described in chapter 14. And in the context of those analogies, if we took the time—we won’t now—but if we went back, we’d see that the assurance of the Father’s presence and power with them was given in the matching section to this. And the theme of answered prayer was also given as well. And here in this section, we have those same things: the Father’s power, the Father’s presence with his people, his love for us, and the assurance then of answered prayer.

Okay. Now let’s get through specifically this particular text. What I wanted you to look for as we read it or as you listen to it was a series of devices used by our Savior to bring emphasis to particular sections of this text.

The first one was rather obvious. In the first four verses, we have a statement by our Savior repeated three times, right? I mean, that’s unusual. I’m reading through this stuff. I study the Bible, you know, every week, couple of times, couple weeks during the day. It’s what I mostly do is study the Bible. This is unusual—to have something repeated three times. There’s definitely emphasis given to this. In the context of those verses, Jesus talks about them seeing or not seeing him, and the word translated “see” in the English is used six times. We’ll talk about that not being quite right—but six times, but actually seven times in that section. “A little while” is emphasized: he says “in a little while you won’t see me. In a little while you will see me because I go to the Father.” And then they say, “Well, what does he mean, in a little while we won’t see him? In a little while we’ll see him? What is this a little while?”

So that becomes the emphatic part of the text. And then Jesus says, “I know you’re arguing amongst yourselves, discussing what does it mean in a little while we won’t see him, in a little while we will see him.”

Now, this side of the cross, the consternation or perplexity of the disciples is not understood because it’s rather clear. And there are some commentators that might disagree some. It has implications for the second coming of Christ. But to us who are entering into a period where we’re actually now in that season of the church year where we meditate upon Holy Week—we remember that this is Thursday night. We know that in a little while they won’t see him because he’s going to be dead in the grave and he’s going to have great sorrow because of that. But then we know that in a little while, three days, three by Jewish reckoning—parts of three days—in a little while they will see him and then there’ll be tremendous joy.

So we look back at it and we don’t know what all the confusion was about. But they didn’t, you see. They were looking forward still to this manifestation, this seeing of Christ.

If you were listening to this text, and remember that for most of church history, people didn’t have Bibles. So you have a particular scripture, you got to listen real good. You got to try to catch the meaning as the text is read. And the text repeats “a little while” seven times. And then it says the stuff about seeing. And so you’d know that the text is emphasizing—the way God wrote this particular piece of scripture—he’s emphasizing the little while.

Now, what that focuses us on as we consider this text and the meaning of it is it focuses us on historical fact. It focuses us on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the central act of all history. As we’ll see as the text moves ahead, the historical reality of the death and resurrection of Christ is being pointed at in letters writ large here by this poetic device of repetition and then the use of “a little while” seven times.

The specific event that’s going to happen has great significance for these men and for us. We can never leave it behind us. It’s always central to what we do. The future is only understood in light of what Christ has accomplished in that historical fact of his death and resurrection.

Now, if you were listening to this text written in the Greek in church, you wouldn’t hear the same word for “see” six times because there’s two different Greek words used. The only translation I know of that maintains this difference of word is the New American Standard, where it says, “In a little while you will not behold me. In a little while you will see me.” And then he says it the same way both all three times. “In a little while you won’t behold me. In a little while you’ll see me.”

Because there’s two different Greek words used, at first when he says “in a little while you won’t see me”—referring to, you know, his being taken from them and his arrest and his death—that word means to simply observe with the eye, to take notice, to actually see something. The second word is a close synonym, but it’s not exactly the same meaning. It has the additional meaning of a further discernment or understanding of something. So it’s not just an outward observation, but it’s more of an inner contemplation, an inner understanding of something specifically that takes place.

And so it has this kind of reference here. Indeed, after the resurrection, this word used to physically see Jesus is used to describe the resurrected but unrecognized Christ in verse 14 of chapter 20, when he’s seen but not recognized for whose he is. That is, Jesus is raised up. Mary sees him, doesn’t know who he is at first. When he’s unrecognized, this word—used to physically see, the first of these two words—is used. But when the appearances of the resurrected Jesus are described, when people really see—it’s Jesus, Jesus—then the second word is used.

You see? Now what can we take away from that? Well, we take away from this first part of the text this emphatic position of the importance of the historical facts of Christ’s death and resurrection for sinners. Jesus, you know, Christianity is not a philosophy ultimately. It’s not concerned with changing the way men think about how their world is. It affects that. But Christianity is first and foremost a proclamation of the historical facts of Christ’s death and resurrection.

When we open our mouths for Jesus and speak to our neighbors, it is this death and resurrection of Christ that must become at some point in the conversation central to our declaration of what Christianity is all about. The historical facts are emphasized. And secondly, the historical facts produce a discernment of the reality of who Jesus Christ is.

Okay, we come to a further understanding of Jesus as a result of meditating upon, discerning these historical acts of the Savior.

This is what Lent is about. Why are we keep hearing about Lent? Well, the idea is that it’s a meditation upon the death of Jesus Christ, which we then link to a meditation on his resurrection. And by doing that, we meditate on Jesus and we come to discern who he is more. You see, if we leave behind the literal passion of our Savior on the cross—if we leave behind the bloodied head, the beaten back, you know, the arms pierced through with nails, if we leave behind the physical beating and torture of our Savior—we leave behind a discernment of what the crucifixion and resurrection, who Jesus is all about.

You see, if all we ever talk about is the resurrected Savior and do not ponder or meditate his sufferings, then we realize we have done disservice to our own understanding of who Jesus is. And one reason for that is we’ve done discredit to the depth of our depravity because it’s the depth of our depravity that is pictured in Jesus Christ taking upon himself the sufferings of the cross, the physical torture and agonies of the cross and then, of course, the greatest stroke—as we sing in “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted”—the justice of God for us poured out upon him.

It is needful for us to truly discern Christ through a meditation of that little while—what were those historical events? And so that’s why we choose now to have a season of meditation on the suffering of Christ because it leads us to a further sense of our own depravity. Not only did he take upon himself the justice of God for us—that’s certainly there—so we could have this kind of well, okay, so we know that he suffered in our stead. Not just that, I think if we understand what the crucifixion was all about, we know that each and every one of us in our own depravity in relationship to God would have been driving the nails through the hands.

Okay, we know that apart from the grace of God each one of us want to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness, and when the just man comes we want to put him to death.

Interesting in the movie “To End All Wars” that’s coming out—that we heard about yesterday, Christian movie, go see it if it happens to make it on the 28th here—one of the first scenes is at the school that starts to begin the conversion and the revival that happens in this prisoner of war camp. It’s not overtly depicted in the film, but that’s what really happened. It’s Plato. And Plato has this description of justice. And what will what will men do to a just man? Well, they’ll scourge him, he says, and they’ll hang him on a cross. Well, that’s what we will do to the just man who comes, the Son of Man, the Son of God. That’s what we would do as well. And so we’re contemplating with the sufferings of Christ leads us to a further consideration of the depth of our depravity.

So that if we do not get to that sense of sorrow and loss, we never get to the sense of joy having those sins rolled off our back. You know, you hear conversion experiences of people, right? And we think, well, those are not typical in the history of the world. And that’s right. Our children should be raised knowing Christ in the earliest age. But that does not mean they will not have a sense of movement from sin and suffering, the pangs of hell, to redemption. Or if they do not have a sense of that movement, it’s because we have failed this text to consider the little while that affected the not seeing and the seeing and the discernment of Christ.

The scriptures portray for us the sufferings of Christ in some detail, I might add. As we know, the Psalms, the song book of this church, has songs that explicitly describe the physical torture that he went through as well as the spiritual suffering for our sin. It is to our benefit. It’s to the proper discerning of Christ to meditate upon the sufferings of the Savior and then in the context of that to think about our own sufferings.

You see, this is the definition of a movement from sorrow to joy: the work of the Savior historically on the cross and in his resurrection and his sufferings are our sufferings. We enter into his sufferings so that we might enter into his joy. And so if a proper meditation on the sufferings of Christ and the fact that those sufferings are then transcended by the glory of his resurrection and ascension—you see, that’s the purpose of them—then we know the purpose of our sufferings. We know that if we suffer, it’s to the end that we might indeed reign with Christ, that we might be glorified and brought up and have that wonderful joy, the transcendent joy.

And it helps us to understand why our lives are so hard, why there’s so much difficulty in them. It’s that we might indeed enter into the sufferings of the Savior and might then prepare ourselves for the great joy that happens as those things are moved ahead.

Now, we suffer in two ways. We suffer for our sins, and any suffering for sin has to include, you know, a commitment to turn from sin. We don’t know how to suffer correctly, I guess, is what I’m saying, without a proper meditation on Christ’s sufferings. But we also suffer unjustly.

You know, I know it’s a good thing that we do—you know, how you doing better than we deserve. And that’s certainly true. That is a true biblical perspective: we deserve hell and damnation. But in Christ, you see, we don’t really deserve it. When someone betrays us, we don’t deserve it. If we get—if some murderer comes into our house and plugs us, you know, we don’t deserve it. If somehow we end up losing our job, not through lack of diligence or attentiveness—this isn’t suffering that’s deserved. I mean, in the ultimate sense, if you take away the atonement of Christ, I suppose we deserve it all. But you see, there is a truth to us suffering unjustly.

Peter points that out very clearly. He calls us to submit to masters who beat us. And he says, if all you do is suffer well when you do something that’s wrong, what good is that? What you need to learn, he says—what we need to learn—is to suffer when we do something that’s right, not when we’re suffering unjustly.

All meditation of suffering is not a suffering on our sin. It’s a suffering on the sin, the suffering of the Savior that was an unjust suffering. And the unjust sufferings we have to go through and it trains us how to respond to those unjust sufferings correctly. You see, we don’t know how to suffer biblically. God says we suffer like Jesus. We entrust ourselves to God. Most situations we’re suffering unjustly, we can’t do anything about it. You see, you got the master, he beats you. You got the husband who’s in church—well, that’s who he is today. You got the parents who are goofed up—well, that’s who they are.

You see? And God, however, doesn’t leave us with a stoic resignation to that. Nor does he allow us to strike out in wrath or unjust judgment. He doesn’t allow us to grumble or dispute or any of that stuff. He expects us to take up the cross of Christ daily, if need be, and to suffer the way Jesus suffered, to submit ourselves to the Father.

Now, the text is going to move us to that by the end. But I guess what I’m saying in this first point is that the text very explicitly, in the way it’s diagrammed—the repetition of words and phrases—calls our attention to the historical facts and calls us to see then a movement from a mere reading of the outward facts of the crucifixion and resurrection to a deeper understanding of who Christ is through our association with the sufferings and resurrection of the Savior. That’s what the text begins with.

Now the second section here also has an emphatic declaration to it. Verse 20: “Most assuredly”—this is the English Standard Version. But “amen, amen, truly I say to you.” It’s an oath of affirmation. It’s like this is really true. This is real important. Pay attention. So he’s got us to pay attention to something here.

Now he’s got another little section with a highlighted emphasis to it. Listen to this: “You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow rather will be turned into joy. 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 man has been brought 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.”

Now in verse 23 we have another “amen, amen. Surely I tell you this.” So that’s a separate section. You see, we now have this section clearly identified for us. And what does the section do? It describes a reversal. It says at first you’re going to have sorrow. The world will have joy. But after a while the world will become sorrowful and your joy will—your sorrow will become joy, and it concludes with that as well in verse 22: “You now have sorrow, but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice. Your joy no one will take from you.”

And then in the middle of this, he gives us a little illustration.

So the whole point of this section here is an entering into sorrow knowing that God will turn our sorrow into joy.

Now, again here, think what this would mean, what kind of sorrow this is for these disciples. They don’t get this resurrection thing. Okay, it’s clear they don’t understand it at this point. What they do understand is that this is the just man of all just men. This is the Son of God. This is the man that loves them closer than a brother. This is the man who teaches and instructs them, builds them up. This is their life, right? Is Christ your life? This is their life. And this man is the one they expect to have victory over all their enemies, their own sin. They recognize victory over their own sin through him. Victory over their external enemies from him. They expect all that. And in a day this guy is going to be beaten to a pulp, put up on a cross, killed, and then put in a tomb. Their future was completely going away.

This is, you know, what the Puritans called the dark night of the soul, right? This is the sort of suffering they’re going to be called to enter into. Everyone will be scattered. Their faith will be dispersed. They’ll have complete anguish—is the idea here. That’s the death. They will weep. They will mourn and weep. And the lamentation word here is the same kind of lamentation we read earlier about the death of Lazarus. It is a lamentation over the death of the righteous one, the one who loved them, the one who is the Son of God. It’s a mourning over that death.

So Jesus says you’re going to have stuff like you never knew. It’s going to be worse than you can imagine. C.S. Lewis in one of his books said that he never knew that grief could feel so much like fear. You see, their grief will have this strong component of fear, particularly in light of their worldview being blasted to smithereens.

So we go through the same thing when we have troubles, trials, tribulations, particularly unjust sufferings, but even just ones. We enter into the same kind of doubt and despair. Our grief is much as Lewis said like fear. This is the death. This is the dark night of the soul. And some of you know what I’m talking about. Some of you young people will know it another 20, 30 years. You’ll have times of great sorrow, lamentation and weeping on your bed.

Most men I know have gone through this over something ultimately that God and his providence brings to them.

And to those who go through this—to the disciples in the original case—Jesus’s message to them is first this: it is reality. Okay, I’m not going to tell you it’s not going to be tough. It is. Your sufferings are real. But they are for a short while, and your sufferings will be turned to joy.

Now, on the day of resurrection, this joy is described when the disciples see Jesus and are overjoyed with the sight. So this is clearly what he’s talking about: the appearance of Christ and then the 40 days until his ascension. And isn’t that nice also—that the 40 days of fasting and lamentation described in various places in the Old Testament, the 40 days of temptation of the wilderness, are now replaced. There’s a new 40 days of the presence of Christ among his people. What a transition, right? That’s what the world has moved through. That’s the basis of the tremendous joy of Easter morning.

You see, and the illustration that our Savior gives, you can look at it just as an illustration. And women don’t like these kind of verses because they all know, oh geez, the most utter pain that’s possible is childbirth. It’s always the thing that’s used for horrific pain. And boy, people that haven’t had children yet, young women, they look at this and they just freak him out.

Well, you know, it’s the imagery certainly is associated with the literal pain of childbirth. But there’s something other than that going on here. Over and over again in the Old Testament, this imagery is used of a woman in travail, and the point is not so much—I mean, the point certainly is an identification with the pain of the suffering of childbirth, much of which has been rolled back this side of the cross through the advance of medication, et cetera. I think that’s proper to see a rolling back of the effects of the curse—pain and childbearing—but I think ultimately the image here is certainly one of entering into sorrow but then the joy.

And the particular item of joy should not be missed here: the specific reason for the joy is not that it’s over—not that the pain and suffering is over—but rather that it’s over because it’s accomplished its end. A man has been born into the world. Okay? And so this is one in the same event, right? Childbirth, labor—it’s one in the same event. You go into labor, you deliver the child. It’s not like two different things happening. It’s one in the same event. And so it wants us to consider the historical fact of what we celebrate at this time of the year.

The death and resurrection of Christ is one event with two sides: and the side is first great sorrow and pain and anguish, but secondly it is great joy.

Now this is—if the sufferings of Christ and a meditation on them are the ideal, the archetypal suffering that helps us to interpret our suffering, this joy of Easter morning is the archetypal joy for us as well. Because what’s described in the Old Testament texts with the woman in childbirth is the description of the coming of the messianic kingdom.

You know, from the Jewish mind—based upon the Old Testament—there were two halves of history: there was the old fallen world when things are pretty tough, and then there was the messianic kingdom, the new day. There was the old day that’s passing away and the new day that comes upon us in a day of great blessing. You see, and the coming of Messiah is described as this birth process where the old world dies and the new world is born.

And Jesus is saying he is that—those three days, the death and resurrection of Christ. They are the turning point of history. They’re not just personal salvation for you. They’re that, but they are salvation for the world. The old man in Adam is dead and gone away with. The new man is born. Jesus brings in a new humanity. You see, the new world is now here. The creation has grown, and in a definitive sense, it has taken upon itself this new world. It is the new creation.

You know, we’ll see this beginning—I’ve mentioned this several times—in chapter 20 or 21. He breathes upon the disciples, received the Holy Spirit. It’s a new creation. He’s in a garden. That’s why we’re going to stress the garden Easter Sunday. The effects of the snake—he’s got a new snake in that garden. But all that’s rolled back to the resurrection of Christ. And now we have a new creation and we have new breath, new life from God and the Holy Spirit.

So the whole message of John’s gospel is being centered upon here: the historical realities of the death and resurrection of Christ. And this cry of childbirth is one to not just convey a sense of the pain or suffering but more importantly than that to portray that the joy to come is the joy not simply of the resurrection of Christ without its effect. Its effect is the creation of the new world.

And so Easter inaugurates the definitive perpetual day of the Lord. We are now in that new world. The old day has ended. The new day has begun. And everything is changed as a result of the work of Jesus Christ.

You know, B.B. Warfield, in discussing postmillennialism—or I guess he would call it optimistic amillennialism because he wasn’t technically a postmillennialist, but he thought the whole world would be converted to Christ—and he said, you know, the second coming of Christ, nothing will be revealed there. Nothing will happen there that hasn’t already happened in the first coming. The center point of history is not the second coming. The central point in history is the first coming. And this is a text that shows us that—it’s the fulfillment of the birth and travail passages. It is the bringing forth of a new humanity, a new world.

That’s the center. The culmination of all things, the second coming of our Savior, is a working out of what happened at this historical event in these 72 hours that literally happened 2,000 years ago to affect salvation for mankind.

So this text with its particular emphasis helps us to see not just the sufferings of Christ, but that Christ’s life—to discern it properly—is the movement, the transition from our sufferings to great joy and deliverance.

And so this text is a reminder of all those things. We have definitively a movement from sorrow to joy.

Now this gives us staying power number one, right? This gives us the staying power when we go through a dark night of the soul. We know that our sufferings connected to Christ also means that our relief from those sufferings, the joy that’s to come shortly upon us, is also connected to Christ. The historical facts cannot be altered. Jesus has affected what he affected. The new child has been brought forth. Sorrow has been turned to joy definitively through the work of Christ. And these disciples have rejoiced in that. And they give us that message: we have seen and touched him. Okay? So they base it in this physical fact. And as a result of that, then we are just as assured in the context of our sufferings.

So the end of those sufferings is great joy to us. And that is as sure as our sufferings are connected to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it gives us perseverance—is the point. It helps us to learn how to suffer properly—not just through a meditation of our sins and that a meditation of suffering unjustly the way Christ suffered unjustly. It also gives us an understanding that those sufferings are for a period of time that will be relieved us to meditate on how we suffer with perseverance and endurance in the context of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to us.

We enter into union with him and are assured of this eschatological movement of the world and our own participation as well. So it teaches us how we are to suffer.

As Olson says, “Thus the death of Christ becomes a fact in the history of the world which everything before it was intended to usher in and from which the entire development of succeeding ages is matured. This state of perfect joy and complete satisfaction is indicated by the words, ‘Ye shall ask me nothing.’”

And then Lang says this: “The death of Christ is the agonizing travail of humanity from which labor the God-man issues glorified to the eternal joy of the whole body of mankind.” And so there’s this definitive movement.

Now remember that this movement happens because of the death of Christ. Death, and in our own experiences, death is frequently the mechanism that opens up life and joy—self-sacrificial death. I mean, the mother is willing to face death if need be, and has been long before the medical techniques we have now have removed that to some degree. But the mother faces death to bring the child into being, right?

Children, you should think about that. I remind my children of that sometimes. Your mother faced potential death through childbearing for you. Tremendous pain and suffering. And that’s the way it works. That’s the way the world works. This new humanity works on the basis of our Savior’s archetypal actions to bring it forth. This is the way the world works as well: that our joy is usually preceded by some suffering and that death opens up victory.

Back in the 1400s, the Austrians attacked the Swiss Cantons trying to get them under control. They outnumbered the Swiss forces 4 to 1. And the Swiss were pretty good fighters. This time though, the Austrians—or the Habsburgs from Austria—pincher movement them. And so they got them kind of cut off and they looked like their defeat was sure. Because if they took off and ran the other way, then they’d be easy attack from the cavalry that was waiting.

And so there was—they had really kind of won the battle. But there was a man who designed a strategy with the Swiss army, outnumbered 4 to 1. The strategy was they formed a phalanx. They formed a V, and he put himself at the front of that V. Now the Habsburgs have a bunch of swords or spears rather—pointed swords and spears—and so they’re they’re a bristling, you know, line there to keep the Swiss in so that they can kill them off.

Well, this man gets at the front of this stall, the head of this V. He attacks this the Habsburg, the Austrian army, and this guy as he runs forward at the head of this phalanx, the head of this V—he puts his hands and his arms out like this and he takes ten of those swords or spears to his own body and he yells out, supposedly—it’s always tough, these historical things—he yells out, “Make room for liberty.” And by doing that, he did effectively punch a hole in that line of Austrian soldiers.

And the Swiss then were able to get out. And because they got out, they had then divided the troops of the Habsburgs. And they then conquered them and killed them off to nearly a man. So defeat is turned into victory through the death of this man who yells, “Make room for liberty.”

Now that’s the way life works. Frequently it is our death and our suffering, even to the point of death for one another, if need be, that produces the joy of victory. And our Savior shows that sorrow will be turned to joy. That is the emphatic truth of this passage. And our suffering will indeed will be seen to come through the other way.

Now this isn’t just for Jesus. In Revelation 11, a description of the events leading up to AD 70, there are these two witnesses, and I think they’re a picture of the united witness of the church in Jerusalem to the truth of Christ after his death and leading up to AD 70. These two witnesses are killed, and then it says in Revelation 11 that the people of the earth—or land, in other words, the Jews—in the symbol of symbolic language of Revelation, the Jews then rejoice, make merry, and send gifts to one another. It’s a false Purim. Remember our Christmas program? Because they’re treating the church as the enemies of God, and they’re rejoicing over the destruction of their enemies.

What’s the point? The point is that the sorrow turning to joy that Jesus said they were going to experience in his death, definitive death and resurrection for them, they would also be called to enter into frequently throughout history. The church suffers martyrdom for the greater cause of winning men to Christ.

Now, the interesting thing about Revelation 11 is that the bodies aren’t buried, and then the nations that are also gathered in Jerusalem look at the bodies for a period of time, and then the bodies go up to heaven, and then there’s a conversion of a great many of the people that have looked upon the bodies. Because what happens is that when men martyr the just man—that is us—that is frequently God’s way of bringing to pass their salvation. They contemplate the death of the righteous, they contemplate the death of the one who really did no wrong, and it doesn’t have to be death. They contemplate the suffering they put you through, knowing that you are suffering unjustly and you don’t sin because of that. You trust yourself to God. You don’t lash out at people. You don’t, you know, get all feeling sorry for yourself, but you suffer for it the way Christ suffers. People observe that and they see Jesus in a sense, and they come to a discernment of the basic truth of the Christian faith: death and resurrection for someone else. And they then convert.

In Revelation 11, God calls us to enter sufferings. We don’t know the reasons for them. The disciples were consternated. They had no idea what was going on in the context of the death of Christ. They were unknown. But what they could count on were the words of the Savior. What we can count on in our dark nights of the soul is to know that the suffering will produce joy and that frequently it is our suffering that is the mechanism for the growth, somehow someway, of someone else in terms of the elect people of God.

Okay, third section quickly. Okay, verse 23. “In that day you will ask me nothing. Most assuredly, amen, amen. I say to you.” So now another point of emphasis saying another section. “You ask the Father and whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full. These things I have spoken to you in figurative language. But the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language. But I will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God.”

And we’ll deal with the last verse separately. Okay. So again, he tells them something very important here. And now what he says is that the end result of what he’s teaching them is this: access to the Father. He’s telling them clearly here about prayer to God and that their prayers will be answered and answered in a way that is unexpected to them. And so we need to talk about this a little bit in terms of what our Savior is saying.

He says that up to now they have asked for nothing in his name. Now, now it seems again here the Savior is contradicting himself: “In that day you’ll ask me nothing. Whatever you ask the Father my name, he’ll give to you.” Again here the English lets us down. There are two different words used for “ask.” The first ask is the word that’s used for ask in terms of information. The second word translated ask is the asking of a supplicant, begging, requesting something from someone else.

So the first asking is kind of a knowledge-based thing. The second asking is something else—asking specifically for assistance towards some task. Now he says “in that day you’ll ask me nothing.” The idea is the Holy Spirit comes in the context of the event of Christ. Their knowledge will may be made known in the death and resurrection of Christ. They will see and discern him more clearly. And so they won’t have a lot of questions about things. They’ll still have needs. And those needs, he promises them, will indeed be met by asking God.

He says, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name.” You see, we wonder why is it that the Lord’s prayer doesn’t end through Jesus’s name? Because it’s given to them before this act of death and resurrection and ascension to the Father. Jesus says when that occurs, from now on, whatever you ask the Father, you ask in my name.

You see, now it’s not a talisman. It’s not some kind of magic formula that if we say, “Gee, I’d like a Mercedes and I ask in the name of Jesus,” is going to happen. “In the name of Jesus” means several things. First, it means by his authority. We have access to the Father through the work of Jesus Christ. But more importantly, it means that we’re asking for those things in reference to Jesus and his mission. You see, remember, he’s the sent one. He sends us. Our prayers are to be asking him things relative to the mission of the church.

We’re not the old humanity anymore. We’re Christians. We’re part of this new world order that affected by our Savior 2,000 years ago definitively. We’re part of the new creation. And what we ask the Father is to be in relationship to the new man who was born, so to speak, the new world that came to pass. So asking in Jesus’ name means having all of our prayers mediated through a submission to the mission of the Savior and for the purposes of accomplishing his mission on the earth.

So it changes our prayers when we meet together at our prayer meetings. We’re going to pray things. We’re going to ask God things in the Savior’s name. And what that means ultimately is we’re asking for things relative to the mission of Christ. Now, we don’t know how that mission is going to come to pass. He doesn’t tell us all the particulars of the way it’s going to come out. We pray as best we can. And when God doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want them to, we recognize that we weren’t asking aright. We weren’t asking ultimately in terms of the mission of Christ—or that his mission, maybe a better way to put it, his mission involved us suffering through the absence of what we requested.

His mission is that you might make a hole, a breach in the gap of our enemies by other people looking at you and suffering unjustly and yet suffering in a way that Christ suffered. And they’ll come to respect and reverence your faith in Christ even in the midst of potential physical death, and they’ll come to salvation.

So God doesn’t deliver you from death. We pray, you know, for people that are sick, and yet they die. Pray for people that are unhealthy, yet they remain unhealthy. God’s normative way is to bring health. But frequently he has his people suffer as a witness to the truth of Jesus Christ, enter into his sufferings, even unjustly, so that those who are watching us might see Jesus Christ, might discern him, might move from a physical observation of you to a deeper contemplation of how is it that guy can go so long without work and yet have, you know, an attitude knowing that God will deliver him, of cheerful submission to God. How is it that a person can go through that kind of death, a long lingering death of cancer, and still maintain a steadfast faith in Jesus Christ to everyone who comes to the room? And that brings discernment to people.

So the asking we have here is in the name of Jesus, and so that’s very important in this text. That’s one of the big significant lessons of this text: that we’re to ask things in terms of the mission of Christ. And we should recognize that mission has been set up in a way that frequently suffering is the precursor to joy, difficulty and loss is the precursor for joy and victory.

Okay. So, and then to assure us of the answer to these prayers, he tells us—well actually he then says that the end result of this is that our joy might be full. This means that the process of prayer is part of the filling up of our joy. And so our joy isn’t full at the beginning. It continues to grow in relationship to these prayers that we ask of the Father. And so our joy becomes fuller and fuller through a submission to the mission of the Savior and a requesting from God what we would have for that mission.

He goes on to say that we don’t really need him to plead for the Father on our behalf. He says that—he says but I will now tell you plainly about the Father. And this is what he tells us: “In that day you will ask in my name and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God.”

Okay, he’s teaching us plainly now of the Father. After his resurrection, these things will become clear, and he’ll speak plainly to them. And specifically, he speaks plainly about the Father. As we discern these events and as we then move in the basis of that movement of history to pray to the Father, the Father answers our prayers. And Jesus says the reason he does it is not because I’m pleading with him on your behalf. Okay?

Now we know that from a theological perspective, Jesus produces atonement. He appeases the wrath of God against us. But that’s not what this text says. This text says the same thing. You know, we’re talking about being born here, right? Long time earlier in this gospel, we had Nicodemus. “Man’s got to be born again.” Connected: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” He wasn’t angry until the son from this perspective, this covenantal perspective—until the son comes and makes atonement for our sins. He was loving of us in his sending of the son.

The Father loves us. Now you see, Jesus says he doesn’t have to plead to the Father. Jesus, remember, has come to execute the Father to us. Last week we said we need to correct this ridiculous idea that the world moves in the context first of a wrathful Father and anger and justice, and then a gracious son, and then a loving spirit. And the loving spirit, it turns out, is a comforter, but he’s also a conqueror. He’s also convicting the world. So we got it wrong with him. And we got it wrong on this end too.

The idea is the Father’s wrath against us is always there. Some people use this text to support Mariolatry, with the images of the mother and all, but you probably have heard me say this. But Mariolatry came about because of such a stress upon the justice of God and the anger of God against sinners that even Jesus wasn’t, you know, really kind enough to be able to go to him directly. He was king of kings and lord of lords. He was kind of like the Father, pretty mad at you for your sin. And so we needed a kinder, gentler version of the Godhead. So we invented Mary—a different Mary from the scriptures—she’s one that carries our prayers to these stern, autocratic rulers, these patriarchal, stern people.

Well, this text is the key to the answer to that. Not only is Jesus loving us, dies on the cross, raise up for us. He tells us that the Father has affection for us, as a father pities his children. The word “love” here is not agape. It is not this unconditional selective love of God that somehow is covenantal and doesn’t reach through emotionally to us. When Jesus says he’s going to answer your prayers because he loves you, the word is phileo. It’s brotherly love. It’s an affectionate, kind love that a father has for his children.

Church of Jesus Christ, recognize this is the love of the Father for us. Jesus is revealing suffering, death, resurrection, and his love for us. But beyond that, he’s teaching us the love of God the Father who pities you, who loves you, who tenderly embraces you as your Father in heaven. And that’s why Jesus says he answers your prayers—not because, which is true from a systematic theological thing, Jesus makes intercession for the Father—but not in these prayers that Jesus is talking about. He’s talking from a covenantal perspective: God loves us now as a Father loves his children.

And interestingly too, look at the conditions of his love. There’s still a conditionality to it. He says, “The Father himself loves you. Why? Because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from him.” We have affection for Christ and have believed him—not “we have believed him and have affection for him.” He’s talking about the life of the Christian from a covenantal perspective. As we take our sufferings and mediate them through Christ, as we take our joys and see them reflected in the events of the kingdom, as we see the necessity to suffer sometimes long periods of time for the sake of Christ, as we see our prayers mediated through a seeking of the mission of Christ and not our own mission—that process yields a greater and greater love in the person of Jesus Christ, a belief in him. And the end result of that is the Father loving us more and more and more.

You see, we’re brought again into that fellowship of the Holy Trinity, a fellowship of relationship with him. And God declares to us today that the Father loves you. Now, don’t take it unconditionally because you got to keep loving Jesus. And as you grow in your love for Christ and obedience and belief in him, the love for the Father increases from this perspective. But he loves you.

So the text encourages us as we go to our prayer meetings today. The basis for those prayers is the love of the Father. The basis of the love of the Father is our love for Christ who gave himself for us that we might be part of the new humanity, that we might be brought forth as a new people instead of being destroyed in the old community.

The final point is the last verse: “I came forth from the Father. I’ve come into the world. I leave the world. I go to the Father.” It’s a fantastic structure. A-B-B-A. “I’ve come from the Father. I come into the world. Leave the world. Go to the Father.” We’re back to a simple declaration of the facts. Just the facts, man. It’s all being discussed here.

“I came forth from the Father. From the side of the Father”—is the imagery that’s used here. The intimacy of relationship of Father and son that he’s described—we’re brought into in this new humanity, this love, this fellowship. He’s come forth from the side of the Father. He’s come into the world in his incarnate state. Now he leaves the world in terms of the season of Easter. He returns to the Father. And this historical fact of what Christ has done—that we remind ourselves every Lord’s day—this is what’s determined everything else.

We’re back at the end of this passage where we were at the beginning: “a little while”—referring to historical facts. This chiastic structure at the end reminding us the historical facts. The end result of those historical facts is that every sorrow of ours will be both experientially now and then in eternity with God the Father—all those sorrows will be turned into joys that no man can take away from us, the scriptures say.

Yes, it looks bad in the short term. The world laughs and you cry. But the end result is something far different. Yes, it looks bad for the United States right now. The world is mocking, Saddam Hussein is up today. But in all likelihood, by the time we meet next week, things will be far different. I don’t know. You know, I have some papers downstairs about that war. But the point is we do not walk by the eyes of sight. We do not walk by determining whether God loves us on the basis of how much trouble or how many joys we have.

We know that our troubles are mediated to us through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ because of the historical fact that we rejoice in today. We remind ourselves of the truth of this historical fact and the truth that all of our suffering becomes joy. And in the context of our suffering, we go to the Father asking for the mission of Christ. And he takes everything that we have and uses it for the mission he has sent us into the world for. And he loves us perpetually.

When it says “the Father loves you,” it is a continuing term durative in the Greek. The Father loves you now. He loves you in a moment. He loves you again and again and again because he has brought you into a love of his Savior.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for these historical facts. We thank you for the focus here in our prayers to you, particularly in preparation for our prayer meetings today. And we pray that you would be with us, Lord God, as we come forward. Help us to believe at the depth of our being that indeed you love us. We’re not somehow always on your bad side, but every thought of yours toward us is love, because of the love you’ve given us for the Savior. Help us, Father, to grow and increase in that love. In his name we ask it. Amen.