Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Scripture for the Day
John 16:16-24
Not that I’m counting or anything, but today marks the sixty-ninth day since Tony’s initial email outlining FPC’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. That’s almost ten full weeks of social distancing and self-quarantining, of hand sanitizer and face masks, of virtual Sunday school and livestream worship. While there have been moments of surprising joy and hope for humanity, the last ten weeks have been difficult for all of us and extremely difficult for many. Birthdays have been celebrated over Zoom. Loved ones have been prevented from visiting their parent, sibling, child, or spouse in their final dying moments. Seniors in high school have been denied their final proms and their graduations. College and seminary students have reached milestones in their education and formation without the pomp and circumstance of years prior. Some of our friends have lost their jobs, and others have watched the market’s volatility chip away at their hard-earned retirement savings.
As I reviewed the daily readings for today, the disciples’ response in John 16:18 hit me like a truck: “What does he mean by this ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” The disciples’ uncertainty concerns a statement that Jesus makes in verse 16: “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little, and you will see me.” For readers of John, it’s pretty obvious what Jesus is talking about: he is again predicting his death and resurrection. In a little while, the disciples will not see Jesus (because he will die), and then in a little while, they will see him again (because he’s been raised). Despite the frequency of Jesus’s predictions in the Gospel of John, the disciples fail to understand. They simply don’t know what Jesus is talking about. They are held up by the “little while” that Jesus mentions and how it relates to seeing and not seeing Jesus.
“A little while.” We all know that this pandemic will someday be a thing of the past. At some point, our precautions and anxieties and collective grieving related to the pandemic will come to an end. And, compared to the history of the world, this will come about in “a little while.” This can’t last forever. God will bring us through this. As Julian of Norwich famously said, “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” But when? What does God mean by this “a little while”?
While we, and perhaps the disciples, would like a timetable or an action plan in relation to our question about the “little while,” Jesus does not provide either. Instead, Jesus focuses on the experience between “a little while” of not seeing Jesus and “a little while” of seeing him again. In other words, Jesus focuses attention on the in-between times. The in-between times are characterized by crying, lament, and sorrow, emotions that many of us have become familiar with during this time of covid. But, Jesus says, these emotions, though real, are not ultimate. Rather, pain will be turned into joy; anguish will be removed. To support this promise, Jesus draws an analogy from childbirth: labor is a time of intense pain, but the pain and distress disappear once a human being is brought into the world (16:21). So, too, for the disciples: after a little while, their pain will end, their hearts will rejoice, and no one will take their joy from them.
But what about us? What about Jesus’s promise to us in our in-between times? Should we hope vigorously that all things will be well and all manner of things will be well? Absolutely. Should we continue to make space, individually and collectively, to voice the sorrow and frustration that we experience? Yes, always. Can we look with anticipation and even joy to the new things that God is birthing through this season of pain? Yes, by all means. We serve a God of creation, new creation, and even resurrection. Surely we should rejoice in what God can and does do with dust and ashes. But we would do well to remember that God’s new thing won’t be predictable. It likely won’t fit within our timetables or even our expectations. But it will be good. And somehow, whether in this life or the life to come, we will no longer remember the anguish of these in-between times because of the good things that God has brought into existence. Amen.
