Easter III

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be alway acceptable unto Thee, 0 Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

From the Gospel: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. (John 16:20)

One of my favorite stories comes from the closing scene of the movie, Charlie Wilson's War.

I try to remember it when everything in my life seems to be going wrong.

A boy is given a horse on his 14th birthday.

Everyone in the village says, "Oh, how wonderful."

But a Zen master who lives in the village says, "We'll see."

The boy falls off the horse and breaks leg.

Everyone in the village says, "Oh, how awful."

The Zen master says, "We'll see."

Then the soldiers come and take all the young men.

But, because of the broken foot, the boy is left behind.

Everyone says, "Oh, how wonderful."

The Zen master says, "We'll see."

The point is summed up more briefly when Saint Paul writes: "Therefore judge nothing before the time." (I Cor. 4:5)

In my own case, I remember the time when I found out that my employer, Northwestern Bank, had been bought out by First Union.

I was very upset.

I had been extremely happy working for Northwestern.

I had a job which was meaningful, a boss I considered a true friend, and a wonderful life outside work.

It was only a ten-minute drive to work, unless I hit the "rush minute," in which case it was fifteen.

Rebecca and I were very active members of Saint Paul's, a loving little Episcopal Parish, whose Rector, Father Frank McKenzie, was smart enough to say almost nothing about the craziness going on in the national church.

Suddenly, all of it went smash.

There was a chance I would be unemployed; at best, I would have a lesser job and would he in Charlotte, working for a bank with an extremely dubious reputation.

I was frightened, angry, and sad; I felt betrayed by those executives who had sold us out.

To be honest, I was also angry with God for letting my world get so turned upside down.

Like the villagers in the story, I said, "Oh, how awful."

I wish I had by then seen Charlie Wilsons War, or had known. the Scripture, "judge nothing before the time." (I Cor. 4:5)

The simple truth is that it really was awful.

I was grateful that I did end up with a job, but it was in Charlotte. My ten-minute commute turned into 45 minutes to an hour.

I did not like my new job very much.

What really upset me was trying to find a church.

All the weirdness Father Frank had shielded us from was rampant in the churches we visited in Charlotte.

After a season of at best spotty church attendance, I heard about a little church out on Margaret Wallace Road, one where they still used in 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Our first Sunday at Saint Timothy's was unnerving, I will have to admit.

They had bowls of water by the door, used incense, rang bells during the consecration, even had pictures of Mary, all of which was way outside my low church comfort zone.

Nevertheless, I heard the priest preaching the Gospel, a thing which I had not heard for a long time.

Willing to give this fellow the benefit of the doubt, I took the somewhat unusual step, for me at least, of taking the cotton out of my ears and putting it in my mouth.

Over a period of time, I asked a lot of questions, real questions seeking understanding, not argumentative questions; the answers I got made sense.

I gradually got comfortable with, if not necessarily always enamored of, all those things I had not understood.

Rebecca and I settled in and were even happier at Saint Timothy's than we had been at Saint Paul's.

After a few years, I decided it was time to give into the call I had first heard twenty years earlier.

I began a journey which led me to become a postulant, a seminarian, a deacon, then a priest, and which, after many twists and turns, brought me here, for which I am supremely grateful.

Looking back, I realize the pain and fear I went through at the time of Northwestern Bank's sad demise was what it took to bring me to the point of answering the call to the priesthood I had been avoiding for so many years.

Our Gospel Lesson for today is from the "Last Discourse," John 13-16.

As we have noted before, the other Gospels give us the Institution of the Lord's Supper; John gives us what Jesus and his disciples talked about at that Supper.

Understandably, much of what our Lord was trying to do was to prepare the disciples for his Passion and Death.

At the end of the discourse, he lays it out very clearly, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace." (John 16:33)

In our Gospel for today, He tells them what to expect following his death.

"A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." John 16:16

For a little while, they will not see him because he will be in the tomb, but then they will see him because he will be raised from the dead.

This seems to confuse them, which is not surprising.

Despite his several prophecies of his death and resurrection, the disciples never seemed to grasp what he was telling them.

As John tells us, even after seeing the empty tomb, "they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead." (John 20:9)

So, he tries again.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy."

This precisely describes the aftermath of the crucifixion.

The disciples surely wept and lamented; Jesus' enemies just as surely rejoiced.

The disciples were indeed sorrowful, but, when they encountered the Risen Christ on Sunday evening, their sorrow was turned to joy.

He likens what they are about to go through to the rigors of childbirth.

"A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world."

There is a deep psychological insight here.

We can remember that we were in pain, but we can never remember the pain itself, which is doubtless a divine mercy; if we could remember the pain itself it would make us all cowards.

He then reinforces the lesson, "Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you."

Everlasting joy is the birthright of every Christian; we may forget about it or misplace it for a time, but no one can take it from us.

There are a couple of takeaways from this Lesson which can help us when we are in pain and sorrow.

First, Jesus never minimizes our pain and sorrow.

He understands what it means to lose someone you love; at the tomb of Lazarus, "Jesus wept." (John 11:35)

He knows what it means to anticipate suffering; in the garden his sweat fell like great drops of blood.

He understands emotional and physical pain, he experienced both in a way I pray that none of us ever will.

He knows what it means to feel "God-forsaken." "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani'?" (Matthew 27:46)

When he likens our pain to that of a woman in childbirth this shows he gets it.

Only a very great fool, doubtless a man, would minimize the reality of the pain of childbirth, or tell the mother to "keep a stiff upper lip."

But second, he points to the sure hope of joy which lies beyond the pain and sorrow.

As the Psalmist put it, "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." "Ps. 30:5;)

Beloved, this is the very essence of the Gospel.

Jesus never once promised us a life free of pain and suffering.

On the contrary, he tells us clearly, "In the world ye shall have tribulation."

Christians suffer no less than other people, indeed it is quite possible they may suffer more, simply because they are Christians.

What makes the Christian's suffering different is that it is never meaningless pain; it is the pangs of something new and wonderful, although yet unknown, being birthed in us.

We do not deny the Passion nor the Cross nor the Grave, but even amid pain and sorrow, we defiantly proclaim the Resurrection.

Like a shipwrecked sailor in the sea, we hold fast to Jesus' words, "be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

And let all the people say, "Amen,"

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

And now we ascribe, as is most justly due, unto Thee, O Lord, all might, majesty, power, and dominion, both now and forever. Amen

Offertory Sentence: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (St. Matt. v. 16.)