Trampling Down Death by Death
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My kids have a joke that when we are spending time out with friends when I say “we are leaving in little while” or “just a few more minutes” it really means nothing!
A little while has meant 2 min, and it has meant 2 hours.
The kids have had their jackets on and ready to go, only to take them off and keep playing because we keep talking with our friends.
Perhaps one of my most ambiguous phrases in our family is, “a little while”
Its phrase always makes perfect sense in my head, however, when I use this phrase Mandee almost always follows up with, well, what does that mean?
Me: I’ll be home in a little while
Mandee: “a little while” in like 10 minutes or a little while in like 2 hours?
woe! “sometime in between 10 min and two hours… “
This language is somewhat enigmatic and ambiguous to my my family…
No one really knows what it means.
This same language also proves to be a bit mystifying to the disciples.
Throughout the gospel Jesus has used figures of speech…But in John 16.16 Jesus makes a statement, that leaves the discipled feeling bewildered and at their wits end.
“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.”
What is Jesus saying here? What is he talking about when he says “a little while”?
Now the disciples, as we will see in a moment, are very confused with Jesus’ words.
However we don’t have to be.
Verse 16 is a transition verse in John 16.
Jesus has been talking to his disciples about his ascension to the Father and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Helper.
Jesus just got done telling them about the mission and work of the Spirit as God’s divine prosecutor and how he will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement.
And when we come to verse 16 Jesus transitions away from talking about the Spirit to talking about his impending death and resurrection.
And he does so in three figures of speech.
The first is here in verse 16
When Jesus says, “a little while, and you will see me no longer” he is talking about his crucifixion, death and burial.
And then when he says, “and again a little while, and you will see me.” He is speaking of his resurrection.
Jesus’ cryptic language greatly confuses the disciples, but it is important for us to understand what Jesus is talking about as we work through this passage.
Because Jesus continues to use figures of speech and does not come right out and speak plainly to them.
In fact, in verse 25 jesus says,
“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.
So Jesus first figure of speech is “a little while”
John 16.16 ““A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.””
And in verse 17 and 18 we see how confused the disciples get.
So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?”
So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.”
Jesus words clearly perplex and confuse the disciples.
“what is he talking about when he says ‘a little while’”?
“Why are we not going to see him?
“And how is it that we won’t see him, and then a little while we will see him?
Eventually it seems like the disciples threw up their hands and say, “We have not clue what he’s talking about”
Now we need to be patient with the disciples, because if we were in their shoes we would most certainly be just as bewildered as they were.
The disciples are lacking a framework, they have no category to allow them to make sense of a Messiah who:
would die upon a Roman cross
And then rise from the dead
And even further abandon his disciples so that another Counselor or Helper could come.
This story that Jesus is drawing them into is one that is scandalous, and paradigm shifting.
In a lot of ways their being confused with Jesus’ words justify what he said in John 16 12, when Jesus said,“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
Jesus knows they cannot bear the full weight of his sovereign plan, He knows they will not be able to process all that he has in store for them… not until they see him upon the cross and raised three days later will the message of the gospel make sense.
The glory Jesus has in store for his disciples, and for his people, is far more weighty then they can possibly bear as this time.
So rather than giving them the full weight of glory, he continues to speak in figures of speech…
figures of speech or proverbs are like pieces to a puzzle… you see part of the picture on each pieces, but it takes time to fit it together to see the full picture in all of its brilliance.
The disciples are not ready for the full picture to be revealed, so Jesus keeps giving them pieces…
He offers them more pieces in the next figure of speech in vv.19-20
Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’?
Jesus asks...“You want to know what i mean by this proverb, by this figure of speech?
He begins to fill in a bit more detail in verse 20,
Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.
This is the next piece to the puzzle..
Truly truly, he says....
“You will weep and lament” -
Jesus is telling the disciples that soon, in a little while, things are going to be very difficult.
They will like Mary at the feet of Jesus when Lazarus, her brother, died, weep, they will cry, they will mourn.
But not only that, they will also lament.
This is to sing songs of sorrow… Lamenting is one of the deepest expressions of grief.
Jesus is saying that very soon, in a little while, this sort of grief will overtake the disciples where they will weep and lament.
And as you do so, the world will be rejoicing
All the enemies of God, from the unbelieving jews, to the demons and ghouls, from the monsters in the darkness to the devil himself will rejoice.
CS Lewis captures this verse in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Susan and Lucy are hiding in the bushes watching as Jadis, the White Which, and all the evil monsters of Narnia kill Aslan.
As Susan and Lucy weep over his death, all the evil monsters rejoice
Lewis writes that he could not fully describe the scene because it would be too scary and parents would not let their children read the book.
When Christ suffered upon the cross and when he gave up his spirit, all the ghouls, ghosts and demonic monsters that have warred against YHWH from the beginning, for a moment rejoiced thinking they had won.
Psalm 22 is a prophetic Psalm about the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus actually quotes Ps 22 1 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” while on the cross.
And if you keep reading you will see that the psalm continues to describe the death of Jesus.
In verse 12 and 13 we see David mention of the Bulls of Bashan.
Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion.
The Bulls of Bashan are a reference to demons who have been set against God and his people longing for their destruction.
And not only did the demonic realm rejoice while the disciples weeped and lamented.
But unbelieving Israel and the gentiles nations as well.
While Christ was in the grave unbelieving Israel thought they had done away with the trouble maker, Jesus.
They thought they had stopped the movement
All those who hated Christ and his message rejoiced
The trouble-maker was gone
The convicting power and authority with which he spoke was silenced.
The miracles and message of Jesus will no longer spread.
The Serpent perhaps thought that he had escaped the head crushing prophecy of Genesis 3:15.
Israel thought they got rid of a the great prophet who spoke of their demise and destruction.
Indeed, The disciples will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice when Christ is sacrficed upon the cross.
But Jesus goes on.
Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.
You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into Joy!
The sorrow and defeat of the cross will turn to joy when Christ is risen from the dead
The weeping and the lamenting of Christ in the tomb will turn to shouts of joy when he is brought forth out of the darkness trampling down death by death.
Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!
The Victory Cry of Christ’s resurrection caused hell itself to shake in fear.
When Jesus took that first breath after the resurrection, all the enemies, all the demonic powers, all those opposed to Christ were utterly defeated.
The world’s rejoicing over Jesus’ death turned to utter regret and defeat in the resurrection.
As Paul says,
None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
However, the disciples still did not understand what Jesus was saying…
They still couldn’t wrap their heads around what was coming in a matter of just a few hours.
So Jesus offers them a third figure of speech.
When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
Giving birth is terrifying.
It involves sharp pain, convulsions, breathing difficulties, a form of agony that only mothers can understand.
But most women giving birth go through it with eager expectation.
Their hearts are already set on the new life that’s waiting to come into the world.
Within moments of the birth (assuming there are no complication), mothers are deeply content and experience an overwhelming joy of the birth of their child.
Jesus’ disciples are about to be plunged into a short, sharp and intensely painful period of time that Jesus compares to being in labor.
However, when the first born of the new creation comes out of the womb of the earth in the resurrection, they will greatly rejoice.
Now, this final figure of speech is one that has deep symbolism and meaning.
Jesus uses the women in labor, about to give birth, to continue the metaphor of his own death and resurrection.
In a strange and mysterious way Jesus is saying that the birth of a child is the resurrection. And the new life of the resurrection comes from the death of the birth pains of labor.
or to shorten it up a bit… Jesus is saying from death comes life.
We tend to think that death is the great fear that follows life, but paradoxically, Jesus is saying the reverse is true.
You must die to have life.
You see, Resurrection is the great mocker of death.
Its the divine irony that from the darkness of the curse of sin, comes the light of the resurrection life.
from Jesus death emerges the life of the new creation
from the horrors of the crucifixion comes the glory of new life and new creation.
Though it may seem backwards and paradoxical...
We see this being the pattern from the beginning and working its way through the narrative of scripture,
and thus it is the pattern of reality.
Death is the beginning not the end… From death comes life
Adam’s death brought forth the life of Eve, who name means life
God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so he put Adam into a death sleep, tore open his side, and from his rib he formed Eve - the mother of all the living
From the death of the world with the flood comes the life of the new world
From the death of Abraham (Gen 15) comes the life of the Abrahamic Covenant
From the Death of Joseph comes the life and salvation of Israel
From the death of the grave of Egypt, Israel was given new life through the birth waters of the Red Sea
We see this pattern play out in big ways and small way throughout the story of the Bible.
And we see this in our own lives
From the death of winter comes the life of spring
From the death of singleness comes the life of a marriage
From the death of adolesence comes the life of maturity
To be healthy you have to die to old bad eating habits so the life of a healthy life can come forth.
To enjoy the freedom of Christ, Paul says we have to die to ourselves, die to the old way of life.
If we refuse to die, we refuse resurrection.
Because without death there is no life, there is no resurrection.
This is obviously true of human life… we all die, and apart from walking through the shadow of death we will never enter into the light of eternity with God.
Death brings sorrow, death is the great enemy, death rocks us to our core. Yet in Christ, death does not have the last word. And because of that we can look at death in the eyes and declare
Oh Death, where is your victory? Oh Death where is your sting?
We are able to stand against the sting of death, we are able to look at death and with all the saints mock death and its defeat.
And we are able to do this because we are united to Christ who is the Resurrection and the Life! The one who has defeated death in the grave.
We are united to the one who gives us something to sing about
For the Joy that comes to those who have been united to the victory of Christ is a joy that that cannot be taken.
Its a fire that cannot be quenched
Its a song that cannot be silenced
Its a victory that cannot fail
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.
The joy of resurrection can never be taken from you!
Church,
Far to often we live our lives as if death has won.
We live in fear, submitting ourselves to the false stories and the lies of the evil one.
We become anxious and fearful, stressed and depressed, we live as if Christ is still in the grave.
And that is the manipulative trick the world wants you to believe... That Jesus is still in the grave.
For if he is still in the grave he is powerless, and we will live powerless lives.
This is the trick of the evil one… for he knows he cannot stand against the risen Christ. And he cannot stand against the church that marches on the gates of hell in the power of the risen King!
My friends, there is nothing greater, more powerful, more life changing, more weighty, more high octane, than the reality that Jesus is alive!
and if we live as such, we will live with outrageous and scandalous joy
We will live in such a way that with Christ, who sits in the heavenlies, laugh at the powers of the evil one who tries to trick us into thinking we are defeated.
We will live courageous and fearless, because we know the battle has been won.
We will march on the gates of hell declaring the victory of the Gospel,
we will dance upon the grave of death, for Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!
Tomorrow is Halloween, I don’t know how each of you will spend the day…
But I encourage you to celebrate the fact that every evil power of darkness has been defeated and put to open shame.
I encourage you to celebrate the fact that every force that stands against Christ and his bride has been triumphed over!
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Church, we are united to and serve the risen King. Lets make sure our lives showcase this reality.
Lets pray.