John 16:16-24
Sixth Sunday of Easter Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke 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
experienced it. If a mother giving birth to a child naturally in that moment had to decide whether she would ever have children again, we’d probably have a lot fewer people in the world. But that’s not the case. What happens so often is that the joy of the newborn child overwhelms all the pain that went before.
Jesus was getting his disciples ready for pain, real pain, deep pain. And he was promising a deep and lasting joy. Sorrow now, but I will see you again. Here’s the promise of Jesus to his disciples: Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.
And Jesus heaps on top of that promises about answered prayers and joy being made complete. What you ask in the name of Jesus, that is with true faith in him and according to his holy will, the Father gives it. That is reason to rejoice. What a promise God gave those disciples! Your joy will be complete. No one will take it away. Something for them to hold on to through their grief. Something for them to recall to mind every time trouble or sorrow came into their lives and work and ministry. This was no graduation ceremony for the disciples, but it did bring them joy, and it set them up for a deep and lasting joy.
And you have the same thing. You have a different context. You don’t experience what they did with a few days of Jesus in the tomb before seeing him again. You don’t see that except by faith and on their testimony. But you do have a viewpoint that puts you at odds with the world around you. The things that would make you weep make them rejoice. Just think about so many things that the world loves and rejoices in that you know displease God. The lifestyle choices that are all about satisfying and gratifying self and not about serving God or others. The attitude that seeks power and fame and glory and looks down on a lowly Savior who calls to service, who announces through his missionary: “We must go through many troubles on our way to the kingdom of God” (Acts14:22).
You have the additional sorrow of knowing and acknowledging that the worst of what you face is far better than you deserve, that your thoughts and words and actions have brought sorrow and suffering. These are the things over which we should feel the most sorrowful. These are the reasons for Jesus to go to the cross and to the tomb. But let that sorrow last only a little while. See Jesus again. Do we need to review our Easter season again? See Jesus appear to Mary next to the tomb and bring her joy by saying her name. See Jesus with his disciples when moments before they were locked in the room without him and the door is still locked. See Jesus a week later telling Thomas to put away his doubts and denials because he can touch the hands and the side. Hear Jesus talk about you when he says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
Jesus didn’t promise his disciples that they would only have joy when they were in heaven with him. He didn’t say that they would need to wait until the end of the world when he would destroy death and sin and Satan and make things perfect for believers. That’s not the only joy he promised. He promised that they could have joy in seeing and knowing him, knowing that he is alive, knowing that their sins are forgiven.
In the same way, Jesus isn’t promising you some fun times to take your mind off the bad things. He isn’t claiming that a party or a ceremony or a celebration will bring you deep or lasting joy. But he promises to you also that because he is alive you can have deep and lasting joy. Right now. No one can take it away. Nothing can take it away. Not pain or sorrow or even death. Yes, this joy lasts forever.
I suppose graduation season is quickly coming to an end. Maybe there are a few more parties to enjoy. I also see that our Easter season is reaching its close. Very soon we will recall how Jesus disappeared from his disciples into heaven behind a cloud. Very soon we will marvel at how he sent his Holy Spirit to them. We’ll turn the page to learning more from Scripture about our lives of faith. But we don’t graduate from Easter. We don’t move on. All that we have is ours because he lives. And that includes our deep and lasting joy.
The Text: John 16:16–24 (EHV)
16“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.”
17Therefore some of his disciples asked one another, “What does he mean when he tells us, ‘In a little while you are not going to see me, and again in a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going away to the Father’?” 18So they kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he’s saying.”
19Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you trying to determine with one another what I meant by saying, ‘In a little while you are not going to see me, and again in a little while you will see me’? 20Amen, 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. 21A 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.
22“So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. 23In that day you will not ask me anything. Amen, Amen, I tell you: Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. 24Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete.