John 16:16-24 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Sixth Sunday of Easter Sunday, May 25, 2025 “No One Will Take Your Joy Away”
It’s maybe at its end now, but the past few weeks have found us in graduation season. Families and students have been in and out of our parking lot on their way to University graduation ceremonies. I actually attended two different graduation services in a three-day stretch this past week. These graduations that have been taking place are big events. They celebrate milestones. They recognize students for completing another step in their schooling. And there are lots of smiles associated with graduations. There is a lot of joy. What brings joy to graduates? Successfully completing their program. Finishing the hard it required. New opportunities around the corner. These are good reasons to find joy. But would we call this sort of joy deep and lasting? Maybe graduates will look back on these celebrations and remember them fondly for a long time. It probably won’t happen every day, though. What happens to graduation joy when someone can’t find a job? When someone loses a friend? When the days get long and the weeks drag on and when we don’t always get along with each other. And we could go on and on about the challenges that we face that try to rob us of joy. It’s not a good enough answer to say, have joy! You graduated from high school or college! But you do have an answer to all those things that might rob you of joy. You have a real reason for deep and lasting joy. You have Jesus, and he lives. Today’s Gospel account takes us back to the upper room on the evening of Holy Thursday. In a way that the other Gospels don’t, John’s Gospel invites us to sit with Jesus and his disciples and listen to him teach. And he tells his disciples about deep and lasting joy. Here’s how he starts: “In a little while you are not going to see me anymore, and again in a little while you will see me, because I am going away to the Father.” Do you understand? The disciples didn’t. We’ve already heard their reaction. We know they were confused, but you have a unique perspective nearly two millennia later. It’s not hard to figure out that a little while until the disciples were not going to see Jesus was less than a day until he would be crucified and buried. And then a little while from that point was the rest of Friday, Saturday, and into Sunday morning when people would see Jesus alive again. They—those disciples—would see him. And after that, he would go to the Father. That last point seems to be part of their confusion. Jesus had mentioned going away and giving the gift of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. He had told them about what would happen, and especially this concept of going away to the Father and seeing them again seemed like it was way off in the distance. But his death was imminent. A little while followed by another little while just wasn’t making sense to these disciples. And maybe Jesus intended it that way. Maybe he wanted them to think about these things, meditate on them, carefully consider them. You get that impression because Jesus doesn’t just spell it all out. He starts speaking to them in other, slightly strange ways. Amen, Amen, I tell you: You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. A woman giving birth has pain, because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of her joy that a person has been born into the world. What was coming for those disciples was truly intense. Weeping and mourning while others, while the world was rejoicing. It’s hard not to think of all the jeering that was hurled at Jesus on the cross. People were gleeful to make fun of him and call him out. “He saved others but he cannot save himself.” And all the while, his closest followers were watching their teacher being taken away. But everything would change in an incredible way. Some of us have seen firsthand the pain of childbirth. Some have