Lenten Reader | Day 33

March 22nd, 2024

Sorrow to Joy

At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 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. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

John 16:17-22

After His last meal with His disciples on the final night of His life, Jesus tells them all the things He wants them to know before His death. We call this long speech the “final discourse.” He covers a wide range of topics – He promises the Holy Spirit; He warns them about the persecution that they suffer; He commands them to love each other. But he also encourages them. He knows the sorrow that His death with cause these men who have given up their lives to follow Him. He understands that it will feel final to them. But He also knows – even though they don’t – that their sorrow will be turned to joy at his resurrection.

Late in the summer of 2008, we found out that Erin was pregnant with our second child. It was a time of great happiness in our family. But the pregnancy never went smoothly. Her hormone levels were never right, and she never felt the same as she did in her first pregnancy. Then that fall – just at the end of the first trimester – she had a miscarriage, delivering the child in the doctor’s office at 13 weeks. It was (and is) the darkest sorrow that I have ever experienced. But the Lord turned our sorrow to joy. Later that winter, we found out she was pregnant again, and in November of 2009 she gave birth to a strong, healthy boy. His name is Elliott, and he is 14 years old now.

I imagine many of you have experienced this movement from sorrow to joy as well. It is normal part of life. And the Lenten season mirrors that. We mourn our own sinfulness. We mourn the way our Lord was treated during His time on Earth. We mourn the torture He endured, and we mourn His death on a cross. But in the end that mourning – that sorrow – is turned to joy at His resurrection. We look forward to the coming Easter morning when we can say, “He lives!” So let us sit in our sorrow now, but let’s also look forward to the joy of Easter.

Erik Allsop