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I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

᛭ INI ᛭

Alleluia! ΙΗϹ Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Christ says today, “A little while and you will see Me no longer.” Very true! You can’t see Christ with your own two eyes. But you can still hear Him, as He promised last week, “Other sheep I have that are not from this I fold. I must called them also, and they will listen to my voice.” (Jn 10)

And yet we are not without hope. The Lord is speaking to comfort us, to encourage us. Because he doesn’t just say, “A little while and you will see Me no longer.” He finishes His thought, “And again a little while and you will see me.” In fact, I will see you again,” He says, “and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. That’s the great encouraging and comforting Word of Christ today.

IT’S ONLY A LITTLE WHILE TILL YOU SEE HIM AND HE SEES YOU.

(I. Now is the time for weeping and mourning.)

It’s simple! IT’S ONLY A LITTLE WHILE TILL YOU SEE HIM and HE SEES YOU. And yet it’s also not easy. It’s not easy for us, because now is the time for weeping and mourning. That is, of course, what Christ said.

In fact, it’s a promise that Christ. We like good promises, but this is nevertheless a promise, a prophecy of the way things will be. “You will weep and lament,” Christ says. And here He’s not talking about funerals and sickness and those sorts of things. (Though that happens!) He’s promising a difference, a distinction between us and the world.

If now is the time and weeping and mourning, what’s going on now with the world? Rejoicing! That’s what Christ is promising here. “The world will rejoice!” There’s all sorts of reasons for this, but Christ is necessarily talking about the world partying it or persecuting us. (Though these are told us elsewhere in the Bible.)

All of this mourning or rejoicing has to do with the truth that “you will see Me no longer.” Everything flows out from here. “You will see me no longer, and again a little while you will see Me,” He says. “I am going to the Father,” He says. For the 12 this was His death and resurrection, then again His ascension. They saw Him, then He was buried then He was raised, and they saw Him. Then He ascended and they didn’t until they joined Him.

For us we’re in Christ’s post-ascension work, so we can’t SEE Him, though we do HEAR Him. The world rejoices over this, and we mourn over this. All for various reasons that will be fleshed out over the next few weeks. But as it stands, sometimes it would just be nice to see Him, right?

(II. It’s only τὸ Mικρόν.)

And this is why Christ wants to encourage us. IT’S ONLY A LITTLE WHILE TILL YOU SEE HIM and HE SEES YOU. You see? (See what I did there?) It’s only “a little while.” Yet, what does that mean?

Well, the reality is it depends on the time scale. But the “little while” is always defined by the Lord Himself. He created time and sets its lengths, measurements, and boundaries. For the 12 the first “a little while” was Three Days. Now it’s been some 2000 years, and we’re still waiting. It’s still “a little while.”

But whatever the Lord decides is a little while, is ultimately for your good. As 2 Peter says, “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2-Pet 3) In fact, “For the elect’s sake, whom He chose, He shortened the days.” (Mk 13) Yes, “His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.” (Ps 30) Nevertheless, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth.” (Lk 18)

(III. Now is the time for listening to His promises.)

Again, this is why your great God and Savior ΙΗϹ Christ comforts you today. He’s making a promise: IT’S ONLY A LITTLE WHILE TILL YOU SEE HIM and HE SEES YOU. And listening to His promises, and this week especially that promise, is what we should be doing right now while we wait for Him!

As we wait for Him, we listen—sheep do that! “They will listen to My voice,” He says. I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. And you can stop worrying about Him not keeping His promises. We worry like that all the time, as if the world’s out of control, the church is struggle, our life’s a mess, often of our own making. (Though we’d never tell a soul that…not even the Lord!) But He will keep His promises.

He has already kept them! Just look at the Twelve! They didn’t see Him—He died—, and then they did see Him—He rose! And that He did according to promise. As we confess weekly: “The the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures!”—just like He said He would! He’s already kept promises and He will keep them again. No reason to despair. Hear His comfort again: IT’S ONLY A LITTLE WHILE TILL YOU SEE HIM and HE SEES YOU.

In the meantime, more comfort. I baptize you. I forgive you. “This is My body, given for you. This is My blood shed for you.”

(Conclusion.)

“Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way.” (Ps 46) All this happens “that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us.” (2-Cor 1) Yes, “He brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep.” (Heb 13) In fact, “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so [we believe] God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.” (1-Thess 4)

“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom 8) In fact, “nothing can separate us from the love of Christ!” (Rom 8) Not even our inability to SEE Him right now. After all, we still hear Him in His Word and Sacraments. Right “now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” (1-Cor 13), “for we shall see Him as He is.” (1-Jn 3) And after all,

IT’S ONLY A LITTLE WHILE TILL YOU SEE HIM and HE SEES YOU.

Alleluia! ΙΗϹ Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

᛭ INI ᛭