#1528 John 16 Part 2 Now You See Me, Now You Don't

 

16 “A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” 17 Some of His disciples then said to one another, “What is this He is telling us, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘because I go to the Father’?” 18 So they were saying, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is talking about.” 19 Jesus knew that they were wishing to question Him, and He said to them, “Are you deliberating together about this, that I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me’? 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will cry and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. 21 Whenever a woman is in labor she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. 22 Therefore you too have sorrow now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. John 16: 16-22 LSB

John 16: 16-22

A little while, and you will no longer see Me - Christ is going to the cross, they will abandon Him, some will witness Him die, and then He will go to the grave. This is all part of God's prophetic time table.

…7He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. 8By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and who can recount His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; He was stricken for the transgression of My people. Isaiah 53: 7-8

…25Know and understand this: From the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of distress. 26Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed. 27And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.”… Daniel 9: 25-27

V. 16b And again a little while, and you will see Me - He is only going to be in the grave for a short time, and then He will come to them.

…39Jesus replied, “A wicked and adulterous generation demands a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41The men of Nineveh will stand at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now One greater than Jonah is here.… Matthew 12: 39-41

V. 18 We do not know what He is talking about - So much has gone over their heads these three years, and I can't laugh at them, but certainly with them. We are the same, coming to Christ at first with our perceived problems. We come with script in hand, and when He doesn't follow it or meet our demands, then we think He is not God, not the Messiah, and we look for another Christ. They have reached a point where they believe He is Messiah, but it still doesn't fit their narrative, yet it matches up to everything that has been said about Him, starting thousands of years before His arrival. Thankfully, as He has told them, He does not leave us comfortless. We have His word to show us what is going to happen and His Spirit to guide us in all truth. 

V. 20 But the world will rejoice - The disciples will be sad when Jesus goes to the grave, but the world will cheer, and this will be played out again at the end of the time of Jacob's trouble, when the world will exchange gifts to celebrate the death of God's two prophets. He has come to call the world to repent and some have said, "okay, but only this far and no more." Others have said, "how dare You call me a sinner, that makes people feel bad about themselves." Still others have said, "I have done good works, I am related to Moses and Abraham, I tithe, go to church or synagogue, if You will do this for me then I will believe." The world always loves to kill the messengers. Jesus is the ultimate mirror revealing the fallen state that no one wants to acknowledge.

…46“Woe to you as well, experts in the law!” He replied. “You weigh men down with heavy burdens, but you yourselves will not lift a finger to lighten their load. 47Woe to you! You build tombs for the prophets, but it was your fathers who killed them. 48So you are witnesses consenting to the deeds of your fathers: They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.… Luke 11: 46-48

V. 20b But your sorrow will be turned into joy - It's the sort of pain that will not last and leads to something great.

V. 21 Whenever a woman is in labor she has sorrow - I have only witnessed labor, as men cannot be pregnant, but it looks excruciating. I have had a stone before and it buckled me to my knees while trying to pass it, and what a relief when it is out. It is a beautiful analogy that Christ is using, especially here in the gospel of John, where in John 3 we learned about being born again from Jesus' presentation of the Gospel to Nicodemus. It is only made possible, the new birth, if Jesus dies. He is the Seed of the woman that must be planted in the ground in order to grow this new vine. We are all still borns in Adam, but made alive in Christ. 

…23But Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.… John 12: 23-25