In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

In today's Gospel our Lord Jesus compares the experience of a believer in this world to a woman in labor.  He reminds us that being a Christian is not all smooth sailing.  There will be pain and lamenting and sorrow; but in the end the sorrow will be turned to joy, as a mother forgets her anguish and rejoices when her child is born.

I think very often we forget that's the way the Christian life works.  We are tempted to think that being a Christian means being blessed by God all the time and being free from worry and hassle and pain and conflict.  And if we are experiencing those things, then we must not be true Christians, or God must have left us or stopped loving us.  But that is a lie.  The truth is that the Christian life is lived both in the fallen realm of death in this world and in the redeemed realm of life in Christ at the same time.  And so it is a mixture of fear and love, weeping and laughing, heartache and gladness, sorrow and joy, insecurity and confidence–with the cross and suffering experienced more often than not in this life, while the fullness of peace, contentment, and happiness is reserved for the life of the world to come.

Those are not exactly the words we want to hear.  We want to hear that life in Christ is a life full of ease.  We want to hear that being a Christian means that we will be treated fairly, that others will always love us, that life's bumps won't be all that hard.

And so we do whatever we can to avoid the cross in our lives.  We take the path of least resistance and dodge the harder parts of our callings–or run from our callings altogether.  We fail to speak the truth of what we believe as Christians to keep peace and avoid any negative consequences from coming our way.  Rather than receiving hardship and affliction as a gift of God that kills our old Adam and strengthens our faith, we fight against it and assert our rights and retaliate.

In the Epistle Peter tells servants to be submissive to their masters, not only to the good and gentle but also to the harsh.  He tells them that it is commendable before God for them to do good and take their suffering patiently.  How many of you have taken that approach with your employers or in any of your other relationships for that matter?

Listen again to the OT reading, "It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.  Let him sit alone and keep silent, because God has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust–there may yet be hope.  Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him, and be full of reproach.  For the Lord will not cast off forever.  Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies."

This is the way and the experience of the Christian because this is the way and the experience of Christ.  The cross and the resurrection define our life and our destiny as believers.  That's what Jesus is saying to His disciples in the upper room on this night before His death.  "Don't be surprised at the fiery trials that will come upon you as if this were something strange.  For I am about to go the cross to suffer your sins to death in My body and win your full and free forgiveness.  And you are my followers.  You are one with me.  You are baptized into Me.  And so you are given to carry My suffering and death in your bodies, in order that you might also carry in your bodies My life and have the relief and comfort that only I can give.  So blessed are you who mourn, for you will be comforted.  Blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for yours in the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus says, "A little while, and you will not see Me; and again, a little while, and you will see Me."  There will be those little whiles when you can't seem to see Jesus, when life is fierce, when the world seems to be laughing at you, when you are sharing in the trials of our Lord.  But He reminds you here, "It really is only a little while that you must endure.  That pain, that disease, that heartache, that difficult situation is almost over.  Just hang on, hang on to Me.  Trust in Me to pull you through it.  It may seem like an eternity, but only three days.  Your Easter is coming.  Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

Again, it's like a pregnant woman awaiting the time of her delivery.  Nine months may not ordinarily seem like all that long.  But, from what I'm told anyway, those days in the 8th and 9th months can sometimes seem to take forever–especially if the back and legs are aching or the weather is hot or you can't get comfortable or you're on bedrest for medical reasons and you're about to lose your sanity because of boredom and the slow motion of time.  But inevitably, the time does come, the little while is finally over, the little one arrives, and it all proves to be worth it in the end and the waiting doesn't seem quite so bad.

So it is also for believers as we await the final delivery on the Last Day.  You were conceived and given new life in the womb of the church by water and the seed of the Word.  Having been baptized you are continually nourished through your holy mother by preaching and the supper.  You are given to grow and mature in the faith like a developing unborn child.  But there are times when things get a little uncomfortable in this womb, especially as the end nears.  And the "labor" of this life can be very traumatic.  It seems to come in wave after overwhelming wave.  It seems like you can't go on any more.  But then comes the delivery of the new life.  Then comes your deliverance into the resurrection of the body on the Last Day, and what occurred before quickly becomes a faded memory, and there is nothing but joy and fullness.

This final deliverance is what you are to focus and fix your hearts on, Jesus says.  Don't bow to the temptations of the devil and the world and your flesh to give up on Christ, to surrender to the moment.  Rather, trust in the Lord to carry you through.  For He has in fact already carried you through by dying and rising again.  He's already conquered all that weighs you down.  It's just a matter of time for that victory to be revealed.  It's only a little while more, and then comes the forever, the unending while of dwelling in the majesty of our Lord and the perfect happiness and completeness that His presence brings.  Then comes the peace that far surpasses our human understanding.  Then comes the time when the sufferings of this present life will not even be able to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

You can't see Christ now, but you will.  And that divine vision will make all the difference for you.  It is written in I John, "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.  But we know that when (Jesus) is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."  Simply beholding Christ will transform you to be like Himself.  Just as you are like Him in this world, partaking of His cross, so also you will be just like Christ in the world to come, partaking bodily of His divine nature and glory.  We don't know exactly what that will be like.  But we know that it will be more awesome than we could ever imagine.

Think of it this way: If an unborn baby had the capacity to communicate with those outside the womb, it would probably find it difficult to imagine what it hears about its future existence on earth.  All the reports about light, space, stars, mountains, trees, skyscrapers, and so forth might in fact seem too good to be true.  Only at the time of birth and afterwards does the child learn how gloriously true it all is.  So we Christians, who still live in the womb of time and of the church, might find it difficult not only to imagine but even sometimes to believe the glowing accounts in God's Word about our future heavenly existence–the promises of resurrection and eternal life, likeness to Christ, dwelling with the angels in the unspeakable beauty of the city of God, and so forth.  But on the day of Christ's return, we will be overwhelmed with the wonderful reality of it all beyond our wildest dreams–our birth and delivery into the new creation.

Jesus said, "You now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you."  For this joy is grounded in Jesus, whose birth into this world overcomes the curse of the woman's birth pain and whose resurrection from the dead brings us immortality.  Remember Jesus' words, "I will see you again."  What greater joy could there be than that, to be seen and known and embraced by your Savior?  So do not lose heart.  For, as St. Paul says,  even though your outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.  For your light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.  So do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (II Corinthians 4:16-18)

And what is most eternal and true and sure for you is Christ's words and His unseen but very real and present body and blood, laid out now for the taking to settle you and strengthen you for this little while.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit