“Your Grief Will Turn to Joy”
John 16:19-22

Click for Audio

Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Sixth Sunday of Easter—May 22, 2022

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Do you remember doing the exercise in elementary school where you recite a sentence putting the emphasis on different words, to show how it affects the meaning?  “YOU kicked the ball”; “You KICKED the ball”; “You kicked the BALL.”  In the same way in today’s Gospel Reading, when we give emphasis to and consider the meaning of each word it helps us to understand Jesus’ statement: “Your Grief Will Turn to Joy.”

“YOUR Grief Will Turn to Joy.”  Many of God’s blessings are showered down upon all of humanity, regardless of our relationship to him.  As Paul says in today’s Reading from the Book of Acts, “He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”

However, Jesus is speaking these words in a very special setting, and to a special, blessed group of people.  The setting is the Last Supper in the Upper Room, on the night he was betrayed, just before his suffering and death.  And the blessed group of people to whom this promise is given is his disciples.  “YOUR Grief Will Turn to Joy.”

So, this is not a general promise or principle for all of humanity, such as the rain falling from heaven and the crops in their season.   This is a specific promise for a specific group within humanity, the followers of Jesus Christ.  Outside this subset of humanity, others MIGHT at times also experience their grief turning to joy.  But, it is those within this blessed group of Jesus’ followers that have a specific promise from him that THEIR grief will ALWAYS turn to joy.

How do you become a part of this blessed group?  None of us deserves it, Christ’s Church is not like a country club into which we buy our membership with our holiness or good works.  For, as Isaiah says, “All our righteousness acts are like filthy rags” in the sight of God.  “For the wages of sin is death,” Paul says in Romans.  That is what we all have earned and deserve on account of our sins: death and eternal damnation.  “But,” Paul continues, “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

By the grace of God, he has given you the free gift of forgiveness of all your sins and called you to faith in his Son as your Savior, as Paul says in Titus, “When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.”

Through the Word of God and the Sacraments, your heavenly Father has brought you into his family of faith, made you born again as his own child.   So, Jesus is talking to you specifically when he promises, “YOUR Grief Will Turn to Joy.”

“Your GRIEF Will Turn to Joy.”  Of course, for the first disciples gathered that evening for the Last Supper in the Upper Room, the most obvious grief they would soon be facing was watching their best friend and beloved Rabbi Jesus horribly suffer and die.  Perhaps you also have watched as a loved one suffered and died.   The greatest grief that we face in this life is death, either your own impending death or the death of a loved one.

However, as sad as their friend Jesus’ death itself would be for the disciples, his death also had other significant ramifications for them, and caused them sorrow and sadness and grief on many other levels too.  For, even though they were now at the very end of their three-year seminary curriculum, traveling with and learning from Rabbi Jesus, even though the Gospels record that over the years Jesus had tried many times to correct their misconceptions, even now at the Last Supper they still had a very crass idea of Christ’s kingship and kingdom.

Instead of standing in a few hours before Pontius Pilate’s throne on trial for his life, they fully expected him to overthrow the Romans who ruled the land and establish himself ON Pilate’s throne as King Jesus I, ruler of a new earthly kingdom of Israel.  And like the faithful workers in a political campaign who are rewarded with top appointments in a new administration, the disciples expected they would soon be taking their place in the palace alongside King Jesus, as his top advisors and VIP’s.

So, when Jesus was instead crucified, dead and buried, they not only mourned the loss of their best friend and beloved rabbi, but also the loss of their own assured career track, the shattering of their personal hopes and dreams.  There is a lot of upheaval in the job market today, and many have had that same experience.  “Grief” is the right word, for there are many losses in life that are like a death, the death of your hopes and dreams. “Your GRIEF Will Turn to Joy.”

“Your Grief WILL Turn to Joy.”  Jesus does not promise your grief “might” turn to joy, or “could” turn to joy, or “may” turn to joy.  He gives you and all his followers the complete assurance, “Your Grief WILL Turn to Joy.”  But, how can he possibly make such a promise?  This is how John introduces this section, at the beginning of the Last Supper: “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things into his hands.” 

So, Jesus has the power both to make, and to make good on, this promise: “Your Grief WILL Turn to Joy.”  Sometimes we experience already-in-this-life this transformation, from anguish and pain, to joy and happiness.  Jesus gives an example: “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.”

Perhaps an odd example for the Master and his male disciples gathered in the Upper Room that night.  But, we know Peter at least was married, and probably some of the others, and they likely had or would experience this special joy from a father’s perspective.  Jesus uses this as an example of pain and grief turning to happiness and joy because the birth of a child is perhaps the greatest joy we experience in this life. 

“Your Grief WILL Turn to Joy.”  Sometimes we see this promise fulfilled already in this life, sometimes we experience our grief turning to joy, and understand how God works all things together ultimately for our good.  In downtown Kansas City they recently restored the grand old Muehlbach Hotel.  A man once looked down from the Presidential Suite of that hotel and picked out below the very store where 25 years before his men’s clothing shop had gone bankrupt and he had lost everything.  And President Harry S. Truman said, “Going broke back then was the best thing that ever happened to me.” 

Sometimes like President Truman we experience our grief turning to joy already in this life.  But, even when we don’t experience that great reversal in this life, Jesus’ promise WILL ultimately and assuredly come true, for you and all his followers.  Not “might” or “could” or “maybe”; no matter what you face, you can be assured of his promise to you with no ifs, ands, or buts: “Your Grief WILL Turn to Joy.”

You can be ultimately assured of that because Jesus’ reference to childbirth is actually a little parable.  The pain and anguish and uncertainty of childbearing and labor symbolizes all the pain and anguish and uncertainty that we face in this life.  And the great joy that makes us forget all that, like a mother rejoicing with her newborn, symbolizes the eternal joy of heaven, where, as Revelation promises, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.” Perhaps it will happen for you already in this life, or maybe not until the life to come, but you can be sure: “Your Grief WILL Turn to Joy.”

“Your Grief Will TURN to Joy.”  The word “turn” actually connects to the little parable Jesus tells about childbirth.  For, although translated “turn” in English versions, in Greek it is actually the word “genesis,” often translated “birth” or “rebirth,” a new beginning, life from nothing, even life from death. 

“In a little while you will see me no more,” Jesus told his disciples that night, “and then after a little while you will see me.”  Jesus is assuring his disciples that God can and will make even the ultimate reversal, life from death.  Though in the next 24 hours they will witness him stricken, smitten, and afflicted, crucified, dead, and buried, on the third day he will rise again.  God can and will and did make even the ultimate reversal, life from death, for his own Son. 

And God can and will make that ultimate reversal for you.  “Because I live,” Jesus promises, “you also will live. . . For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”  You will experience the ultimate rebirth, life from death, “Your Grief Will TURN to Joy.”

“Your Grief Will Turn to JOY.”  There are many poignant passages which tell us of the disciples’ completely overwhelming joy three days later:  “The women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy”;  “He showed them his hands and feet, though they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement”;  “He showed them his hands and side. Then the disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.”

That is the joy you will experience in heaven.  Joy at seeing your Lord, and overwhelming joy, like the disciples, at seeing your loved ones alive again.  “Then will our mouths be filled with laughter,” says the Psalm, “and our tongues with songs of joy.”  “Everlasting joy will crown their heads,” Isaiah says.  “Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”  “Your Grief Will Turn to JOY.”

Today’s Introit from Psalm 30 expresses this promise so beautifully: “Weeping may remain for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” After all the weeping you endure in the dark night of life in this world, joy will come for you in the glorious morning of eternal life.  As Jesus says in today’s Gospel Reading, “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”