[The following sermon is mainly drawn from Doctor Martin Luther.]
Thus says the Lord Christ to His disciples, and to you, His saints: "You will have to weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. Indeed, the world will teach you the meaning of the words 'a little while, and you will see Me no more.' While you are weeping in the deepest grief, the world will laugh, dance, and be in high spirits. But in a little while, your sadness will cease and turn into joy."
This "little while" of sadness and weeping summarizes all vocations ordained by God if one wants to lead a godly life in them and do what is right. For instance, he who wants to be a pious head of a household in the estate of matrimony will surely find out something about what this "little while" is.
You would think that no one would want to enter these vocations, since they cause sadness. But God has arranged matters very well. He places people in such callings and offices before they know the cost. He hustles young people into matrimony with music and dancing. They enter the marital estate joyfully and think that it is nothing but sweetness and pleasure. In this way God must lure them into a stall before He throws the rope over their horns. Then, when they are caught, they will find that things are far different. Their joy disappears, and their pleasure is embittered by grief and sadness.
Good and bad, sadness and joy, must alternate, just as summer and winter, sunshine and rain, good year and a bad year. Now there is sadness; then there is laughter; soon after there is sadness again. Keep this in mind and adjust yourself to it. It must happen to every person in his vocation that God inflicts on him some of the same sweat that was inflicted on Adam, and it will be unpleasant and hard for anyone to bear this patiently.
But this is even more important, as well as more difficult, in the matters that make us Christians. We must confess Christ and help preserve Christianity, and maintain faith in our conscience. Then we have real suffering and a hard battle to fight against the devil and the world. This was true especially of the apostles, who had to stand before the whole world, kings, emperors, the mighty, the wise, and all who were great. The disciples had to enrage them to the point of crying out: "You Christians are scoundrels who do not deserve to have the earth bear you. Whoever puts people like you to death has rendered God the greatest service."
That is what happened to Christ when they sneered at Him and cried out to Him on the Cross: "If He is really the Son of God, let Him come down now! He trusted in God! Let God deliver Him now!" There had to be such bitterness and wickedness that Christians, like their Lord, were mocked and jeered in their greatest misery and torture, were called godless, were denied everything that was good, and were to be regarded as no different from the most harmful and venomous reptiles on earth, spoiling and ruining everything that is called good. Their enemies said that it was the primary obligation of all men to lend a hand in exterminating them from the world.
It pains any person to be brought before a court of justice and to suffer violence there, to be condemned, to be treated unjustly, and, in addition, to be laughed at and mocked. This is even more true when such treatment is not only received from the judge and the world but is also confirmed by the devil. He tempts your heart to say: "It serves you right. You are a sinner. What you are suffering is still much less than you deserve. Do not the facts show that God is against you and not with you?"
Those are the really mortal blows, the true farewell drink of gall and vinegar, such as Christ tasted on the cross when He cried: "I thirst." The devil has masterly ability to shoot such poisonous, fiery darts into the heart. Then he blasts and destroys everything man has regarded as right and good. Thus, especially during the three days of Christ's suffering and death, the devil shook the apostles as though he had them in a sieve.
They should have remembered that in Christ God had given them the dear, faithful Savior, who had done such great things and had been such a comfort to them. But satan tore such comforting thoughts out of their hearts, and substituted thoughts of death and hell. He whispered to them, "Now where is your Christ, on whom you relied and through whom you thought you had a gracious God? There He lies, executed as a criminal and evildoer, cursed not only by men but also by God. You who clung to Him are in the same condemnation and deserve to share His fate."
In such times, we, like the disciples, should remember that exactly when it seemed darkest, God was in Christ, reconciling us to Him. God was not abandoning Christ to the grave, but would rescue Him from death. For Christ's sake, He would also be gracious to us, even when we have sorrow and heartache because of Christ.
Take courage, then, when you are hated and cursed. Do not despair when it seems that you are virtually hurled into the jaws of the devil. Do not think it strange when those who should protect you and are supposed to be pious and God-fearing people turn upon you to devour you.
Remember that Christ comforts you with the words, "a little while." Sorrow and weeping will not endure forever or last too long. For if this did not come to an end, neither you nor anyone else could bear it. It would surely lead to destruction. Therefore Christ says: "Again a little while, and you will see Me. ... Your sorrow will turn into joy." The dear Lord Himself had to experience indescribable sorrow during His own little while of sorrow and pain and death. So He does not repeat these words "a little while" in vain. He says to you, "I will not stay away from you, though I must leave you for a short time. But I will return to see you, and to see you in such a way so that your hearts will be glad; and the time of sadness that seemed eternal and unbearable to you, will have been but a little and brief hour. Your sadness will be replaced by joy, which will be eternal and which no one will take from you."
All this is because the suffering of Christ was not for nothing. He was given into death to purchase everlasting joy for you. He died in awful torture so that you need never taste the darkness and shame of the Cross. Because of His blood and death, your sufferings are temporary, and your cross is far lighter than it would be. For without the ugliness of Golgotha, you would sink down into the darkness and shame of hell. Without the little while that Christ suffered in your place, you would have a great, long while, even eternity itself, to feel the punishment and agony of your sin and guilt and death.
Christ was cut off so that your time of suffering could be cut short. He felt the full agony so that your agony could be lighter, and could be shorter, and could be turned to joy.
Christ also illustrates this with the example of a woman about to give birth. For her, all is anguish and anxiety, with no foreseeable end. But everything is concentrated on the moment when the child is born into the world. In that moment the anguish is immediately forgotten because of the happy sight of the newborn child.
A change like this is experienced in this Christian life. Sadness will not last forever. It will turn into joy. Otherwise our condition would be hopeless and helpless. But Christ has helped by saying that we will not be subjected to the eternal torture of the devil with his horns and claws, but that we will see Christ and rejoice in Him.
Now it is dark night; soon it is day again. Therefore the lamenting will not last forever, even though it seems and feels that way when we are in it. When we cannot see or determine the end, Christ has already done so. He points out to us in advance that we must bear this suffering, no matter how bad and unpleasant the devil makes it. Even though we do not see the end, we must wait for Him who says: "I will put an end to it and will again comfort you and give you joy."
O Lord Jesus, keep us poor sinners until that great day. Amen.
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