Your Sorrow Will Turn Into Joy
John 16:16-24,
“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” 17 So some of his disciples said to one another, “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 am going to the Father’?” 18 So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” 19 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? 20 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. 21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
Our passage begins with something like a riddle. Jesus says,
“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.”
We’re reading The Hobbit at home, and so I couldn’t help but think of Bilbo Baggins and Gollum in the cave trading riddles while Bilbo hides the ring. What has roots as nobody sees / Is taller than trees / Up, up it goes / And yet never grows? . . . (A Mountain). Voiceless it cries / Wingless flutters / Toothless bites / Mouthless mutters. . . (Wind). Jesus had a little Bilbo in him here. He says, “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” You can picture poor Andrew sitting there and thinking it over. . . . Mmm mountain! No, wind! The disciples are all turned around here.
Some of his disciples said to one another, “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 am going to the Father’?” 18 So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.”
I don’t think these guys would have made it out of the cave with Gollum’s ring. “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” So what did he mean?
He’s talking about what’s about to happen in the next few days. He’s talking about the cross, the tomb, and the victory. In a matter of hours, you will not see me because I’m going to be killed. The good shepherd is about to lay down his life for the sheep. . . . And then, in a couple days, you’re going to see me again. Oh you’re going to see me.
You Won’t See Me
First, he’s preparing them for his death. “A little while, and you will not see me. . . .” Friends, I’m going to die. . . . You’re going to have to watch me be betrayed, and slandered, and mocked, and then nailed to a tree and left to hang there until I can’t breathe anymore. You’re going to watch me bleed to death. And you’re going to be sad. And it’s right to be sad. It’s going to be terrible, the worst nightmare any of you have ever seen. The crucifying of the Son of God is the greatest evil and heartache in history — and our history is filled, from Adam to Iran, with lots of evil and heartache. Whatever sorrow you’re bringing in here — and there are serious sorrows in this room — whatever sorrow you’re bringing in here, this is greater.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) — and they murdered him. They met all of that grace and mercy face to face, and they spat on him. They drove nails through his glorious hands, his sinless feet. He came to die for their sins, and they saw him, and they went and sinned even harder against him.
They tortured him, and they savored his pain and shame. Verse 20, Jesus says to his disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.” I’m really going to die, and you’re really going to weep. At the darkest hour, you’re going to wish you couldn’t see me anymore. That’s how bad it’ll be. And the world is going to watch you cry and they’re going to cheer. In just a little while, it’s going to be awful.
You Will See me
That’s not the whole riddle, though.
“A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.”
I’m going to die — but hear me, I ain’t going to be dead long.
“And again a little while, and you will see me.”
I’m really going to die — my heart will stop, my eyes will empty, my lungs will collapse, my flesh will go cold — and then I’m really going to rise.
“You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.”
I’m not going to be dead long, and so you won’t have to be sad for long.
I love the comma at the heart of that key sentence: “A little while, and you will not see me [comma, not a period] and again a little while, and you will see me.” The three days aren’t even long enough for a period. Almost as quickly as he left and died, he’s going to rise and return to them. He’s going to walk with them, talk with them, even eat with them.
He gives them a picture for what’s about to happen in verse 21.
“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come. . . .”
Can he get an amen, Cities Church? I mean Jesus is speaking our language here. We love babies in this church. We max out nurseries in this church. Some of us buy passenger vans. This is a familiar picture for us. And pregnancy is hard. God says to the woman, Genesis 3:16: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” These nine months are nine months of multiplying pain.
You have back pain from carrying that little bowling ball everywhere you go. Your blood pressure might spike, threatening you or the baby. Your hormones surge, making you more anxious and irritable and sometimes sad.
You’re tired because your body’s constantly in overdrive — your heart, lungs, kidneys all straining to support another human being. You’re tired, but you don’t sleep well at all, which makes everything (even the smallest tasks) ten times harder. You have to go to the bathroom every 12 minutes. You feel sick and you probably throw up. Some women throw up a lot — for months. And then, at the end of all of that, you might be in the agony of labor for hours (or even longer).
Listen to what Jesus says: “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come [comma] but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” She doesn’t remember?!
If he wasn’t Jesus, we could say he’s just another naïve guy who doesn’t get it. But he gets it. “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him,” — the baby, the womb, the placenta, the epidural — “and without him was not anything made that was made.” He gets it. And you get it, if you’ve ever seen a mother after she’s had her baby. She’s not holding her baby and grumbling about how much her back hurt for the last nine months. She’s not complaining about all the times she had to wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. She’s not hung up on all the extra doctor visits and the poking and prodding and anxiety. No, if you watch her, it really seems like she just forgot all of that. She forgot months of pain and exhaustion and vomitting in minutes — in seconds even. In just 6 pounds and 8 ounces, all of that is behind her. Why? She has her baby!
“When she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish,” Jesus says. Then verse 22:
“So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
You’re going to have sorrow when I die, but you’re going to see me again soon, and when you do, you’re going to be absolutely overcome with joy. You’ll be so overcome with joy that you just might forget the pain. The joy will be so full and so intense that you won’t think about how sad you were. And he wasn’t lying. In just a little while in the Gospel of John, we’re going to see this happen. Here’s John 20, after his death on the cross:
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
Their sorrow turned to joy, and no one and nothing took that joy from them. Remember, most (if not all) of these men will be killed for following Jesus, and none of that could touch their joy.
Preparing You for Your Sorrows
No sorrow could touch their joy in him, and no sorrow in your life can touch the joy you have in the risen Jesus. In these verses, Jesus is clearly preparing his friends for his suffering on the cross, but he’s also clearly preparing them for their own suffering to come. And we see this all over this final meal together. He told them, again and again, that they were going to suffer when he was gone.
“If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:19)
“The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. . . . I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.” (John 16:1)
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
If you follow me, you’re going to have tribulation. You’re going to have tribulation. You’re going to have tribulation. This is going to be hard. Do you know that, Cities Church? Do you remember that when tribulation comes to your door? . . . So many Christians in the world have been led to believe that life with Jesus should be only joy and never sorrow. And so they’re devastated when sorrow comes, and sorrow comes to us all. Jesus told us that, he warned us — but they’re not listening to Jesus.
Jesus said, I’m going to rise from the dead and so you’re going to have untouchable, unshakeable hope and joy, but you’re going to suffer. You’re going to have sorrows of various kinds — prayers that go unanswered year after year. And I want you to be ready. And so he prepares his disciples for those sorrows in at least three ways here in these verses.
1. You can have joy, even in sorrow.
First, when sorrow comes, Christian — and sorrows will come — know that you have a reason to rejoice, even now. Verse 20:
“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. . . . 23 You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
This was true when Jesus died, and it’s still true right now. He’s still risen and living and reigning! He’s as real and alive in heaven as you are in this room. Because he rose, we have joy, even now, even in the sorrows that come. We are sorrowful, yes, but always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10), because Christ has conquered death, he’s overcome the world, and he’s preparing a place for us in glory where we will live with him forever. Our sorrows are real and heavy and painful, but they cannot touch that joy.
He gives us another reason to think that we can have joy now, though, even in sorrow. Look down at verses 23–24:
In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
While they live and wait and hurt in a world without Jesus — with sorrows everywhere they turn — he wants them to pray. Ask me anything, he says. And he’s specifically encouraging them to pray (notice) that their joy may be full. Pray in my name, ask me anything, that your joy might be full. And not full one day in heaven, but full right now in sorrow.
He’s not talking about joy when he comes again and takes them home. That will be a joyful day — the fullest joy and pleasures forevermore. No, he’s saying pray here and now so that your joy might be full here and now. That’s how powerful my resurrection is. You have a reason to rejoice and a power to rejoice no matter what your circumstances are.
So many Christians in the world have been led to believe that life with Jesus should be only joy and never sorrow (and so they’re undone when sorrow comes). Other Christians (maybe this is you) have suffered so much that you’ve started to think that life with Jesus, at least in this life, is only sorrow and never joy. And so you’ve stopped expecting to experience any joy here on earth. If Jesus has risen, and I can assure you he is not dead anymore, you can have joy, even now — if you ask.
2. Joy comes to those who ask.
So, when sorrow comes, first, know that you can have joy, even now. You still have big, strong reasons to rejoice. Second lesson here: joy comes to those who ask. It comes to those who pray. And that’s where Jesus goes in verse 22:
I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
Whatever you ask. . . What does the whatever really mean here? Clearly, it doesn’t mean that God will automatically give us whatever we ask. We know that from experience, if we’ve ever prayed for anything for long. No, God doesn’t immediately give us whatever we ask for. That wouldn’t be loving. Parents understand this. Our kids ask for all kinds of things all the time, and we want to give them all the best things — but often that means not giving them what they want in the moment.
No, he says, “whatever you ask of the Father in my name” — whatever you ask in reliance on me and for my glory. He said that earlier in the night, John 14:13–14: “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” There you have it again, whatever you ask. No, he doesn’t immediately give us whatever we ask (because he loves us). No, the whatever here means we can ask him anything in this name. There’s no ask too small or big. We’re invited to ask like children. Children don’t worry about asks being too small or too big. They just ask. That’s how your Father wants you to ask, so that your joy might be full. Joy comes to those who ask.
And our sorrows keep us asking, don’t they? They keep us praying. In fact, this is one great reason for sorrow in Christian life. What do you pray for most often and most passionately? You probably pray for the things in your life that hurt — the loved one who isn’t saved, the relief or healing that won’t come, the bill that won’t go away, the temptation that won’t relent, the person who won’t talk to you. You pray for those things because you have to. Sorrows keep us asking, and that means they keep us closer to Jesus. And in his presence, close to him, is fullness of joy — “that your joy may be full.” This is why the saints in your life who have suffered most are often strangely the happiest in him.
3. Your sorrows will have a baby.
Lastly, your sorrows will have a baby. What do I mean by that? I mean your sorrows, all your sorrows, have a purpose. They’re going somewhere. Your pain, in the hands of God, it’s producing something. Soon and very soon, your sorrows are going to give birth to a new life, a new world with only joy and never sorrow. God wants you to know that, in a little while, the baby’s coming.
In these verses, the sorrow of losing Jesus gives birth to the eternal joy of his rising from the dead. His suffering, every inch and millisecond, was filled with divine and perfect purpose. And your suffering, all of your suffering, has that kind of purpose. It’s part of your path to glory, and this pattern is all over the New Testament.
2 Corinthians 4:15-17,
[When sorrows come] “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
Or Romans 8:16–18,
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him” — we’re going to suffer, we’re all going to have sorrows — “in order that we may also be glorified with him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
John 16:21,
“When she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.”
Your sorrows are going to give birth to a joy so great that it’ll make you forget the sorrows you’re carrying right now. When Jesus returns, you won’t have to carry them anymore.
Your joy in Jesus is going to outlast your sorrow. No one can take away your joy, but someone can take away your sorrow. If you entrust your sorrows to Jesus, he’s going to take them away.
You Will Ask Me Nothing
I skipped over a line in verse 23, and I want to end there:
“In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.”
What did Jesus mean when he said, “In that day you will ask nothing of me”?
It might mean, “You’ll stop asking me for things, and you’ll start asking the Father in my name.” It might mean that, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, and that’s because the words for ask here are two different words in the Greek: “you will ask nothing of me” and “whatever you ask of the Father in my name.” The second one (“whatever you ask of the Father in my name”) is typically used for supplication: asking someone for something or to do something. The first Greek word (“you will ask nothing of me”) is most often used when someone’s asking for information — when they need someone to explain something. And Jesus says to his confused disciples, who have all kinds of questions: “In a little while, you’re not going to ask those questions anymore.”
Think about all of their questions just in the last couple chapters:
“Lord, where are you going?”
“Lord, why can I not follow you now?”
“Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
“Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”
“What does he mean by ‘a little while’?”
They actually say in our passage, verse 18:
“We do not know what he is talking about.”
And Jesus is saying to them: You’re going to know really soon, and then you will ask me nothing. You won’t ask me where I’m going, and when, and how you’re going to find me. In that day, you will ask me nothing, because I will have already died and rose.
You’re going to know what you need to know. And that’s what we remember right here at this Table.
Each Sunday, we come with all kinds of questions, all kinds of sorrows we desperately want him to heal and take away. But we’re not asking how Jesus is going to save the world anymore. We know. With all our hearts, we know.
This Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried — “a little while, and you will see me no longer.” He descended into hades. “And again a little while, and you will see me.” The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. And when he does, he will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore — only joy and never sorrow.
