From the Daily Lectionary for Saturday in the Second Week of Easter
John 16: 16-33
‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.’ Then some of his disciples said to one another, ‘What does he mean by saying to us, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me”; and “Because I am going to the Father”?’ They said, ‘What does he mean by this “a little while”? We do not know what he is talking about.’ Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, ‘Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me”? Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
‘I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father. On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.’
His disciples said, ‘Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’
We continue our reading in John’s Gospel, in the section referred to as the “farewell discourse.” Jesus is speaking to his disciples one last time before his death. So a little context here: Mark is the earliest of the Gospels, written around 70 C.E. But while written a generation removed from the time of Jesus’ life and ministry, Mark uses sayings that were probably in circulation much earlier than when the Gospel was written. The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, is a collection of these sayings, and some scholars date its writing around 40 C.E., just after the time of Jesus’ ministry. Luke and Matthew use much of Mark’s material, so those three Gospels, called the ‘Synoptic Gospels,’ are very much the same. John’s Gospel is entirely different both in terms of its narrative genre, and its theology.
Also, John’s Gospel was written much later than the Synoptics, probably after the turn of the first century, yet another generation removed. The Jesus movement early on was a movement within Judaism, hence the myriad references to Hebrew scripture in the Synoptics. John was written at a time when there began a divergence between Christianity and Judaism. Jews in Judaea had special dispensation from the empire to worship according to their tradition. As the Jesus movement grew and began to take on its own peculiar characteristics, it had no special dispensation. The Judean leadership rejected this evolving sect primarily to protect their own autonomy. Moreover, the Jesus movement was quite overt in its critique of the Roman regime, and the Jewish leadership both in Jerusalem and in the diaspora wanted nothing to do with it. That is why in John’s Gospel there is antagonism between the Johannine community and the Jewish powers that be who were in league with the Roman governors.
So this Gospel is set amid this tension. When Jesus speaks to his troubled disciples about an uncertain future; in truth, this is the writer(s) of John speaking to his own community in a time of suspicion and danger. For the Roman principalities, Christianity had become synonymous with rebellion, even revolution. In our passage today reassurance and encouragement are being offered to a community living in fear, and anxious about what the future holds for the movement, and for their very lives.
In this passage John has Jesus speaking of the resurrection; but resurrection in a second century context. Resurrection is the promise and fulfillment of the movement, but Jesus warns his disciples that it comes through pangs of birth; that the suffering of this world are in fact the sharp contractions necessary for a new birth. This is of course the ancient pattern… that the world is in constant motion between death and birth. We know through the testimony of our ancestors, and through our own experience that the pattern is true: Death always gives way to new possibilities; sorrow is forever being overcome by joy…. And then the pattern repeats, only in a new context, a new place, and a new time.
Love informs the pattern. To stand amid the cycle of death and rebirth, Love is required; laying down one’s life for the need of the other, is required; and Love is strong enough to endure, and even triumph. That is our witness and our legacy, brothers and sisters. Jesus, who is the incarnation of Love, the model of sacrifice for the good of the whole, has conquered the world of suffering, injustice, and violence. Perhaps the rub is that we don’t yet see what resurrection will look like, and indeed it will be not what we expect… but it will be; and there will be Shalom, the peace that passes all understanding…. And that I believe is sufficient. That I believe is something to live for.
A Collect for Peace (BCP p. 815)
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of justice, no strength known but the strength of Love: so mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one God; to whom be all glory, now and for ever. Amen.
