The disciples have never seen a night like this. The Lord of Creation becomes the most menial of servants. He washes their feet with a towel wrapped around His waist.
He has told Peter that he will deny His Lord three times. He has spoken of His imminent betrayal and death.
Time is wound up tight. The Cosmos is holding its breath. It sees what's coming, but the disciples don't. They are confused. They are afraid.
They hear Jesus say that in a little while they will not see Him. Then after a little while they will. They've been with Him for three years. Where could He be going? What could separate Him from them? He's the Christ of God... He surely cannot die. Wrong, disciples, wrong... He will die, and you will weep and lament.
“You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.” These words don't sit right with the disciples, especially on this night. This is the night when all their notions about Jesus are being challenged. This is the night they will all abandon Him.
Beloved, on this night the Lord is feeling the burden of your sin. It is a heavy burden, a burden that Atlas could have never borne on his shoulders. Jesus knows that in just one day His holy body will lie dead in a freshly hewn tomb. He knows that when you see Him die, you will weep and lament.
Separation hurts, and we experience it all the time. Children grow up and start families. Loved ones move away. Eventually, they die. We feel the pangs of loss. We weep and lament as the apostles did.
When you sit in a pew and look at a casket, hope is hard to see. You aren't thinking about the resurrection. You aren't thinking about the Eternal Life that has destroyed Death once and for all. You are thinking of the one you lost. The one that you talked to just a few days before. The one you loved. The one you cannot bear to lose. It is painful. It is filled with torment, and so one Lutheran once wrote that it is at a funeral that is most difficult to confess God as your creator.
Very difficult indeed. God is not the creator of death. He is the Lord of Life. And if God is our creator, then how can we die? If God is our hope, what do we do with the grave? The reality that we face day in and day out is ridiculous. It is the horror of horrors and it gets worse. It gets much much worse for the disciples. God dies.
A good God does not seem to fit into this vale of tears, and a Crucified God fits even less. We weep. We lament. We grow faint. We raise our faces to heaven and cry out to God, “How long! How long until we finally see our salvation!”
A little while, beloved. Just a little while. When there is a casket lying here there is a Christ candle burning nearby. And the Christ candle reminds of something that our fears, our anger, our doubt, and our anguish cannot know.
Christ was dead, but He is dead no more. He was buried, but His tomb is empty. He gave up His life, but His life can never be taken away. Jesus is risen, and sorrow is driven away.
Jesus says that he will turn your sorrow into joy, and He means it. He has taken your sin the the cross and destroyed it there. He is the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He has borne our griefs. He has carried our sorrows.
He has suffered and died on the cross. All the world's sin is forgiven. Hear the word He spoke by the prophet Jeremiah!
“The LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.
“Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.”
Rejoice, O heavens! Sing, O earth. The Lord has redeemed His people...
Time is wound up tight. The whole cosmos is waiting for a new thing. Jesus has ascended into heaven, lives and reigns to all eternity.
You weep for a little while. You lament what you lose when your loved one enters heaven. It's hard. It's painful. You don't know what to do. But fear not, beloved. Wait... wait for the Lord.
It'll only be a little while. You will be reunited with all who rest in Jesus. You will share the eternal life that they enjoy. You will see them raised, never to die, united to Christ in His church forever.
You will renew your strength. You will receive the holy body and blood of Christ from this altar. You will be given the life that never ends. You will run and not grow weary. You will walk and not grow faint. All of this is true. All of it is sure. And why?
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
