St. John 16:16-22

May 8, 2022

Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Virginia

On the day of His execution, Pilate presented to the Jews the scourged, suffering Jesus and declared, “Behold, the Man!” Jesus is the Man. All of humanity was wrapped up in Jesus, the new Man, the second Adam.

In today’s Gospel, we do not hear, “Behold, the Man!” but in essence, “Behold, the Woman!” The curse God put upon woman was pain in childbearing and sorrow in conception. The first woman Eve endured suffering and tribulation in childbirth, and had to endure her first-born son Cain slaughtering her second son Abel. Since then every woman has suffered. But to the first woman a promise was given: her offspring would crush the head of the serpent, the devil.

“Behold, the woman!” is a kind of sub-theme throughout John’s Gospel. The very word “woman” is used in a precise and careful way throughout. The Mother of Jesus, for example, is never called “Mary” in John’s Gospel. She is sometimes the Mother of Jesus, and  other times, “Woman.” You remember those striking words that sound almost insulting to our ears, when at the wedding at Cana, John 2, where they have run short of wine, and His mother implores Jesus to do something about it, He says, “Woman, mine hour is not yet come.” Something very important is happening there. The wedding at Cana is being celebrated, but the ultimate wedding, the marriage feast of heaven, is not yet. First must come Jesus’ hour, His suffering and death. So the woman who gave birth to the new Man, the second Adam, our Lord Jesus, is told to wait, and pointed towards His hour, His cross, His suffering for us.

Then comes the woman at the well, John 4. Do you know her story? She is drawing water from the well, and Jesus asks her for a drink. Then He tells her about the water of life, which will satisfy every thirst. She wants the water. Who doesn’t?! We all have thirst, we all have desires. But none of them can be truly satisfied by the things of this world. “Sir, give me this water,” she says. Jesus responds, “Go call your husband.” Doubtlessly with shame on her face, she admits that she doesn’t have a husband. ‘True enough,’ says Jesus. ‘You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now, you aren’t even married to.’

And that’s the story of mankind: Wandering, suffering, faithless, adulterous, rootless, homeless. We can’t criticize that woman. She’s us! Just as surely as you are overcome by porn, booze, or the constant criticism and gossip that you heap up on other people, you are that woman. Confess it, and say to Jesus, “Sir, give me this water.” But He does not give it to her yet, not in its fullness. For the water has not yet gushed forth from His pierced side. “Woman, mine hour is not yet come.”

Then comes the woman caught in adultery, John 8. The Jewish people in microcosm have assembled to stone her. Fools and hypocrites! They are the adulterers. For as bad as it is to have sex outside of marriage—and make no mistake, it is a sin to even think about it!—so have these scribes and Pharisees committed adultery, on an even deeper level. For the LORD God of Israel embraced these children of Israel as a bridegroom embraces his bride. But they wandered from Him; they kept the sacrifices but showed no mercy. They read the Word of God with their lips, listened to it with their ears, but rejected it in their hearts. Are you really all that different? Repent! You are the adulterer. Don’t condemn that woman. For you are the woman, you have been caught in adultery. And what does Jesus do for her? He sends away her accusers and absolves her of her sin.

And then we come to today’s Gospel, with this reference to a woman in the agony of childbirth. It seems like just a little parable, Jesus comparing the tribulation that they will go through to the suffering of a woman in childbirth, replaced by the joy that comes when the child is born. But this is much more than a simple parable. Jesus says, “A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” Isn’t that a strange way to speak, “for joy that a human being has been born into the world”? Can you imagine visiting a woman in the hospital who has just had a baby, and saying, “That’s a fine looking human being you have there”? It’s an odd way of speaking. But Jesus says, “human being,” (anthropos in Greek), and not “child” or “baby” or “infant.” Why? Because in this little parable Jesus is referring to Himself. Jesus is the human being, the man, the anthropos; He is the One born of a woman, born of a virgin, born under the law that He might redeem those who were under the law.

The whole story of mankind, our fall, our death, and our salvation, is here, in these little words, “joy that a human being—[a man]—has been born into the world.” Our first mother was told that she would have sorrow and anguish in childbearing, but that One would come from her who would crush the head of the serpent. Now, in Christ Jesus He has come! What joy, beyond all other births, is in His birth! What sorrow in His death – and yet see how that sorrow turned to joy, in His glorious resurrection from the dead!

So this is what gives us joy, even in all the tribulation and anguish that we experience in this life. The little ones we baptize will one day return to dust, unless our Lord returns first. It’s a terrible thought, and yet it is a thought—no, a reality—that we must acknowledge. The wages of sin is death. But when we say “Christ is risen!” we simultaneously confess that the baptized will likewise rise from the dead.

That one great truth – that in Jesus sins are forgiven and death obliterated – is what enables us to makes sense of this world which otherwise leaves us only sorrow and anguish. This is our joy, which means we can cease the pursuit of all those worldly things that promise joy but leave us empty. This world is full of sorrow and anguish, death and sin, but Christ is born and sorrow is undone, Christ is risen, and joy has come into all the world. In the vocation of woman and mother is embedded the story of humanity and the story of God’s salvation.

The words of Jesus are true: “I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” These words came to pass for the Apostles; “A little while” He was taken from them, but “a little while” and He returned. So shall it be for you. The sufferings of this present age are but for “a little while”; hope in God, for His promises are true and certain. Just “a little while,” and He shall return, “and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” Until then, He is still with us, in this Sacrament, at which we also pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” ‘Let us see You, and our hearts will rejoice!’ ✠inj✠