Introit (Psalm 66)
St. John 16:16–22
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night that He
was betrayed, Maundy Thursday,
He said to His disciples, “A little while, and you will see Me no
longer.” That is, in a little while, in a matter of hours, Jesus was going
to die. Then He said, “Again a little
while, and you will see Me.” That is, in a little while, in a few days, Jesus was going to rise again and show
Himself to the disciples. But they didn’t
understand. Before the cross and
resurrection the disciples never understood Him even when He was clear and to
the point: It is necessary for the Son of
Man to suffer and die and on the third day rise again. After His death and
resurrection things became clear. And
so we who live on this side of the cross and resurrection don’t have much
trouble understanding Jesus, but that doesn’t make life much easier.
The disciples had sorrow at the
death of Jesus. He was taken from them, and they did not know if they would see
Him again. They wept and lamented, but the world rejoiced. While the disciples
cried for their Master, Satan and this world of unbelievers rejoiced at the
death of Jesus, thinking they had victory.
So also we weep and lament in
this life. We know Jesus is not dead, but we do not see Him. Like the disciples
we are experiencing that “little while” when He seems to be gone. We know that
Easter is a great celebration, but we also know from experience that the
celebration doesn’t last forever. This world doesn’t always look or feel much
like Easter. This world is full of death. It often really looks like death is
the victor.
Jesus said, “You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.” So at first
glance, there seems to be a contradiction between this word from Jesus in our
Gospel reading and the Introit for today:
Jubilate – as in “jubilation.” Shout
for joy to God, all the earth! But when the Bible or the liturgy quotes
another piece of Scripture, it is generally assumed you know the context or the
whole Psalm. Our Introit verses come
from Psalm 66, and this Psalm is
perfect for this Gospel reading. It
is a Psalm of praise and victory, but not a victory that we achieved for
ourselves. It is a Psalm of deliverance,
God’s victory for our benefit.
Sing
the glory of HIS name; give to HIM glorious praise!
Say to God, “How awesome are YOUR deeds!
So great is Your power that Your enemies
come cringing to You.”
Come
and see what God has done:
He
is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man.
Come
and hear, all you who fear God,
and
I will tell what He has done for my soul.
This is how we rightly praise God: we tell
of His awesome deeds. The ancient people of God praised Him by telling how He
redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and brought them into the land He promised
them. He turned the sea into dry land;
they passed through the river on foot. Now we, God’s people, tell of His
victory that He won for us on the cross, the redemption He achieved by shedding
His holy blood and dying in the place of sinners. We tell of His triumphant joy
that He now shares with us, having risen from the dead, putting the enemies of
sin, death, and the devil under His feet.
And yet the shout of joy is not
always heard as it was on Easter. This “little while” of sadness seems to drag
on, for we don’t see our risen Jesus. He told us we would experience weeping
and lament. So does our Psalm ignore our sorrow and try to brush it under the
rug? No. The Psalm has not forgotten or dismissed our suffering and sadness. Rather
it looks on our dark moments with the right perspective. It sees our suffering
and sadness clearly with eyes of faith.
For You, O God, have tested us; You have
tried us as silver is tried.
You
brought us into the net; You laid a crushing burden on our backs;
You
let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water;
yet
you have brought us out to a place of abundance.
You see, despite the Psalm’s call to shout for joy and Jesus’ word that we
will weep and lament, this Psalm and Gospel reading go together perfectly. Because
this Psalm does not shout empty praise, and it does not ignore our sin and
desperate situation.
Here is the hard truth of God’s
Law that this Psalm reveals about our distress, our pain, and our tears: The
Lord did this to us. He tests us, He tries us like metal in the forge. He presses
on us, He breaks us, He exposes us, He accuses us and even kills us. Because we
are sinners. It’s no more than we deserve. Left to ourselves we only do what is
hurtful for us. We are not satisfied with what we have, we think God is holding
out on us. We choose only what we think is right in our eyes, but our eyes,
desires, and thoughts are evil.
So the Lord must break us. But
He breaks us so we do not break ourselves. He does it in mercy, for our benefit.
This is also included in the awesome deeds of the Lord. He will not leave us to
our own devices. He does not want His creation to destroy itself. So He comes
after us, He chastises and corrects, He exposes our lies, our weaknesses, and
our stubbornness devoted to self-destruction. He disciplines us because we are
His children, and He would have us back with Him. He catches us in His net and
lays the crushing burden of the Law on our backs in order that we would stop
our evil ways and seek Him, in order that we would wait for His salvation so that
He may bring us to life again.
So repent, but do not despair. If
we give into despair and sin, or if we still insist on our own way, if we love
our sin more than God’s Word, then the Lord will not save. The Psalm admits, If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the
Lord would not have listened. He will let us go our own way and His
chastening will not help. If we spurn His Word and His loving correction, if we
despise and neglect His precious blood and redemption, then He will spurn our
prayer.
But
truly God has listened… He has not rejected my prayer or removed His steadfast
love from me! His love for
you cannot be destroyed because Christ our Savior has revealed that love with
His death in your place. Our Father
breaks and corrects us for our good, but
all punishment for sin was taken care of on the cross. Christ was brought into the net of death, the Father laid on Him
the crushing burden of our sins. Violent
men rejected Him and He went through the fire of God’s wrath. Yet the Father also brought Him out to
a place of abundance. Raised from
death, Jesus lives, for you and forever. And
the love of God for you may never be in doubt.
So shout for joy! Sing praise even
in the dark moments. When you are lonely, depressed, or beaten-down, don’t wait
for your happy emotions to come back on their own. Sing hymns, pray the Psalms.
They carry you out of yourself. And when you are suffering, when you are sick,
or when you’ve sinned and you get the consequences, or when someone dies, call
the thing what it is. Don’t ignore the pain and hope it will go away. Complain
to God about it, hate it, and wait for the Lord. Cry to Him. Call yourself what
you are. Confess you are a sinner, confess your anger and sadness, confess that
you’ve been sinned against, and confess that you sin too.
All this is the Truth, and the
Truth is praise to our God. For when this Truth of sin is spoken, then the
greater Truth of forgiveness may also be made known. And forgiveness is a
reason to shout for joy, even in the middle of weeping and lament. Even while
you’re dying, sing these words, He has
kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip. The world
laughs at this and calls it false hope and wishful thinking. To the world,
suffering and death are all that there is. We call a thing what it is. Sin,
sickness, suffering, and death are evil. And we count them as nothing for that
is what they are. Even in death God keeps our soul among the living. Jesus
lives and that means you shall live also. He is risen from the dead and He will
raise your body from the dead. He said so Himself: I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will
take your joy from you.
Shout for joy to God, all the earth.
Sing
the glory of His name;
Give
to Him glorious praise!
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He
is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
