A Long "Little While" - John 16:12-22

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[Read John 16:12-22]

A Long “Little While”

Waiting is the hardest part. Waiting to understand. Waiting to know what’s next. Waiting for the end of grief. We think if we knew when our waiting would end, and what that end would be, it would be easier. But Jesus has called us to patient faith.

On this fifth Sunday of Easter, our Gospel reading [John 16:12-22] jumps backward, like last Sunday, to before the Easter events. This time to a conversation between Jesus and His disciples on Maundy Thursday night, just before the events of Good Friday and Easter happen.

We know that on this evening in John chapter sixteen Jesus is about to be betrayed, arrested in the garden, tried, crucified – and then raised. The disciples, though they were told it, did not understand it. And, in fact, there was much that they were not ready for.

“I still have many things to say to you,” Jesus said, “but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” [John 16:12-13]      

Jesus then warns them of what they don’t yet understand: “A little while, and you will see Me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see Me” [John 16:16]. What is Jesus talking about, they are wondering. What is a little while? And what does He mean that they won’t see Him, and then they will see Him? [John 16:17-18].

Jesus then gives them assurance, but without a direct answer. Without exact details of the answer. “You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy…” 

It’s like a women giving birth, Jesus says. She has sorrow during the pain – like it’s never going to end – but then it’s so quickly replaced by joy when the baby is placed in her arms. “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” [John 16:20-22]

Assurance, but what’s the answer? What did He mean, “A little while?” What’s going to happen?

Well, over the next three days, what’s going to happen does happen. Jesus is crucified and dies – He is taken from them. They are full of sorrow. They do not understand. They expect a full grave. But after that “little while”, on Sunday morning, they find an empty grave – and, on Sunday evening, their risen, living Savior. And they are joyful.

During the little while, they didn’t know. But then, at the end, they see and rejoice.

Your life with the Lord is a life of “little whiles”. Which seem like long-whiles. A long time. Waiting for understanding, for what’s next, and for the end of griefs – among other things.

At every stage in our life, we may have many questions about the faith – about what the Bible says, about who we are, about who God is, why He does what He does or says what He says. Why we teach certain things, or what we teach. Why we don’t teach or do what another church teaches or does, and so on.

The answer I get today might leave me even more perplexed, or put off. But a few years from know, the answer makes sense. I even become dedicated to it. But that little while, for some of us, can feel very long. For some, not knowing right now really bothers them.

Nevertheless, it’s by the ongoing experience of life’s circumstances, together with the ongoing hearing of God’s Word, that the Holy Spirit – that Spirit of Truth – shapes and forms us. Question after question might have its own long time; but every long time does finally become a little while at its end.

For the disciples, on Easter evening, a terribly long half of a week of not knowing what was happening, finally ended in joy that could not be taken away. They then began to know why the Lord died and rose.

Fifty days later – another little while – they received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, on Pentecost, in full measure. They then began even to proclaim, not only that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, crucified and risen, but even the purpose of Him being crucified and risen: the forgiveness of your sins. They proclaimed the forgiveness of sins to Israel for all who believed.

Nevertheless, even these more mature, Spirit filled disciples still did not know it all. We saw that Peter, who proclaimed faith in Jesus to Israel, did not yet understand that this salvation through Jesus was in fact for every nation, people, and tongue – for all who would believe [Acts 11:1-18].

That early church really struggled to believe that salvation in Jesus was for other nations, not just Israel. Yet, now, we believe it very naturally.

That early time-period of the church’s life was the little while in which the New Testament scriptures were written, the New Testament of the Bible. The Spirit of Truth, as Jesus promised, guided those disciples into all the truth.

“He will take what is Mine and declare it to you,” Jesus said. And in the long-while ever since, we have learned from those Scriptures the testimony about Jesus – all He did and all He taught and commanded.

The Spirit of Truth that Jesus promised and sent declares to you everything about Him – “He will take what is Mine and declare it to you” – in the Scriptures. The Scriptures are the vehicle of the Holy Spirit for you today. “All Scripture is breathed out (just as Jesus breathed out the Spirit on Easter evening) by God” – the Scriptures were written when “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” [2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-21]

One simple word of encouragement for you today is therefore this: Let the long-while of your questions, sorrows, grief, and of waiting for ‘what-happens-next’, be accompanied by the Spirit of Truth by keeping your ears and your nose in the Holy Scriptures, where the Holy Spirit comes to you.

When the every-Sunday hearing of the Word of God, and the daily reading of the Scriptures, accompanies you, then the Holy Spirit and all He has to say about Jesus your Savior accompanies you too.

Increasingly, the death and resurrection of Jesus – and the forgiveness of your sins through faith in Him – will be revealed and known more greatly in your heart as the answer to each grief, sorrow, question of the faith, and time of waiting.

Who He is and what He has done for you is the answer found at the end of each “little while”, and in ways that dig deeper each time. This deepening of the knowledge of Christ’s love for you is the treasure waiting at the end of faith with patience.

And, as life goes on, what the Spirit of Truth has declared about “the things that are to come” [John 16:13] – also recorded in Scripture – these increasingly become our comfort. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away… Behold, I am making all things new.” [Revelation 21:4-5]

The “little while” the disciples faced, when the Lord was taken away and given back again, was without a doubt a long time during the waiting. And our wait for the Lord is a long time during the waiting.

But you have the Lord’s promise today that every time of waiting – and this whole life – will prove to be only a “little while”, and then, “Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” [John 16:22]. Thanks be to God. Amen