Pastor Dan Eddy

John 16:12-24

Turning grieving into joy

5-2-10

Let us pray: Create in us a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within us. Cast us not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from us. Through this morning’s message, restore to us the joy of our salvation, and uphold us with a willing spirit. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

I. Introduction – The story of two women –

This is the true story of two mothers.

One had a five-year-old child, Billy. One day he was playing out back of the house located next to a river. A brief moment of inattention and Billy drowned.

The second woman had a daughter, Grace Jean, whose simple illness turned into pneumonia. She died at only age 16.

The tragic pain of each mother felt to lose their child so young. These mothers didn’t grieve in the same way, and not just because the circumstances behind their child’s death were different. But the way they mourned can tell us much about how they and we look at life, our relationship to Jesus, and death.

This morning’s Gospel reading tells us how Christ prepared His own Disciples the night before His own death. This text from John 16 sheds light on how our Lord prepares us to handle grieving.

In verse 22, λύπη (Lu-pay) was the Greek word used in the original New Testament text for grieving. Jesus is emphatic that His Disciples experience grief. Grief here refers to any mental or spiritual pain. It’s the pain of dealing with any loss, not just death. The loss of a spouse in a divorce. The loss of money. The loss of health, of a job, of the way things used to be. The pain of accepting that things will never be the same again.

Everyone grieves because everyone experiences pain from losing people and things. The question is how well do you grieve?

This morning my prayer is that this strong Word of God can show you how healthy grieving can lead to Christ-filled joy. It involves two elements: Appreciating the purpose of pain, and recognizing when grief has turned to joy.

II. Appreciating the purpose of pain

In verse 21 Jesus provides the perfect illustration on the purpose of pain…the woman who is due with child. No one would argue that she is going through pain needlessly or hopelessly. Even with modern medicine, giving birth is still painful, right mothers? But, it’s also all forgotten when the pain’s purpose and value is clearly seen as a mother holds her beautiful child in her arms for the first time. Because after pain comes joy. Giving birth is seen as healthy grieving. It’s pain with a purpose.

The point Jesus is making is any grieving in life is pain with a purpose…to help us see the good God is drawing you to. The birth of stronger faith, the birth of more patience, the birth of increased compassion, a better appreciation for life’s blessings…taking these intangibles and making them real…including the fact that someday all pain will come to an end as our Epistle reading from Revelation 21 stated this morning.

And women rarely give birth all by themselves. There’s doctors, nurses, mid-wives, Lamaze coaches to name a few.

Likewise, you are not expected to go through grieving your pain on your own. In the first part of our text, Jesus spent much time telling the disciples that they will have their grief coach nearby. He is known as the Spirit of Truth speaking on behalf of Christ. In other words, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is there in your heart knowing your pain, as one who experienced the greatest pain from the cross, helping you through yours. Don’t ignore your divine grief counselor and coach. When you do, that’s unhealthy grieving.

Unhealthy grieving is not wanting to face the pain…avoiding it, denying it at all costs…through self-medication, clinical depression, acting out toward loved ones, not dealing with anger, passive-aggressive behavior, overburdening our schedules, being workaholics. You look strong on the outside while you’re falling apart inwardly. You don’t want to face the pain because you don’t see its value. You don’t see where it is leading, because you don’t see what’s at the end of your pain….relief and ultimately immorality. You don’t see the pain leading you to joy.

I think it’s safe to say that none of the Disciples grieved Christ’s pending death very well. Their grieving involved running away in fear. Judas took his life. Peter denied Jesus. Even after Christ’s resurrection it took time for the Disciples to accept joyfully the true meaning and significance of that miraculous event from the cross and the grave.

However, their joy increased as they better understood their mortality of life today and the immortality of the life to come. After Pentecost they took the focus off of themselves and put it on helping others. Don’t you think they had to grieve the loss of Christ in the flesh after He ascended into heaven? Their grief turned to joy as they were persecuted and martyred for their faith…yes, joy as they experienced pain. The joy was felt in serving the Lord by serving others. They saw the end game knowing someday He would be back in the flesh.

For the mother who lost her 16 year old daughter to pneumonia, she understood that someday she would be united with Grace Jean in heaven. It’s didn’t necessarily reduce the pain of grieving but it gave her a perspective to help her understand where this grieving was leading her. She reflected a more appreciative view of God’s gift of life.

For the other mother, she grieved often reliving the past replaying the tragedy over and over and rarely moving past it. She was so filled with guilt…it was hard for her to see why all this pain was happening.

Don’t try to go through your grieving by rejecting Christ through the Holy Spirit. He won’t give you more pain than you can handle. Do you really believe that?

In 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 (ESV) Paul stated: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

“Yeah…right. Nice words pastor but it’s not helping me with my grief.” Many times people have heard these verses but they still feel overwhelmed. Yet, often times relief is there…the answers to the prayers are right in front of them. It’s just that many times people don’t want to use the escape routes. They don’t want to cut back or give up the job causing them misery. They don’t want to confront the person causing them pain. They don’t want make the lifestyle adjustments to get themselves out of the financial trouble. They don’t want to seek the professional help they need to deal with a tragic death. The prayer life is little to none…the meditation of God’s Word is virtually non-existent.

In verse 12, Jesus indicated that He would give His Disciples only what He felt they could handle. But when you engage your faith toward God, just like with the Disciples, did in verse 19 and following. Did you notice how many times they said “What did He mean by that?” You could just see them discussing and struggling with Jesus’ words. Christ allows you and me to struggle and struggle before providing the answer….the escape, the way out to that leads to joy.

And through that, Christ wants the end result of your grieving to bring about repentance and humility. 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 (ESV) Paul says: “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

Appreciating the purpose of pain is so that in your grieving and repentance you can see the relief of forgiveness to better experience the joy of your life in Christ, today.

III. Recognizing when grief has turned to joy (when losses turn to gains)

So how do you recognize when grief has turned to joy and experience this relief? You ask for it. In verse 24 Jesus stated: Ask the heavenly Father in Jesus’ name, and receive so your joy will be complete. Turning life’s losses into joyful gains.

But just saying Jesus name in a prayer is not asking. His name is not some magical word that opens up a genie to give us what we want.

Asking in His name means you understand God’s will, which means you understand His Word. Jesus would never give you something that was not in His Father’s will, anymore than you, as a parent, would let your child cross the street if you saw a car coming, even if your child insisted on crossing at that moment.

Pray is answered in His timing, in His will, in His love for you, not based on what you want. But if what you want matches God’s will, it’s yours.

The Disciples had not understood the power of Christ to give them what’s within His Father’s will. They did not know the power of Jesus and they’ve walked by His side for at least three years. Sometimes, we aren’t much different today.

The idea is to ask, ask and ask again, so you can receive, receive and receive again, in order that your joy may be complete. Remember God knows what’s ahead. He knows you better than you know yourself. All your joy goes back to the Christ’s death and resurrection. But your joy will not be fulfilled until the End…until the next life.

Joy is not happiness for its own sake but joy is contentment and trust in Christ to produce a feeling of oneness with Him…a sense of being, security, and love. It’s the joy of relief. It’s moments in life when we experience the absence of pain.

For the mother of Grace Jean…she had a strong prayer and devotional life. The death of her child drew her closer to Jesus. She experienced much joy in her life. For the mother of Billy, this was not as much the case. Life for her was often a struggle of questioning God and why He would allow her little boy to drown. Her questioning of God spread to other areas of her life…with a less than positive view. Her mourning involved grieving her wrongdoings over and over.

The worst way to sap you joy…the worst thing you can do to keep the pain…is to constantly grieve your sins. Don’t do that. Jesus grieved your sins from the cross to give you His gain from the grave. Confess them…let them go, so your loss of sins gives way to the joy of life and forgiveness.

How well we grieve will determine how well we move forwarded with our life in general and our faith journey with Christ. Accepting losses well helps us gain much strength for our faith, because God grants you the serenity to accept the things you cannot change; the courage to change the things you can; and wisdom to know the difference.

If we don’t accept Jesus’ love and forgiveness, then we become victims of learned helplessness. A life of never ending tragedy with little hope of relief or joy…because we won’t accept that Christ already grieved our iniquities, and is helping us through our pain, everyday.

You see it’s the faith in our hearts that Christ gave us at our baptism that causes us true joy. That joy is being fed this morning with Christ’s true body and real blood. As long as Christ is in our hearts that joy can not be taken away, even isn’t fully experienced this side of heaven.

And if you don’t think how you grieve life’s losses to experience life’s joy affects other people, is seen by others….let me tell you I knew both of the moms who lost their respective child. They were both my grandmothers. I saw how they grieved 35-40-50 years after their children’s death. The tragedies they faced not only formed the way they looked at God, but reflected the way they looked at life.

In the midst of their tragedies they still found joys in this life to love their children and grandchildren. Their grieving under the cross helped prepare them for the other challenges they would encounter in life…although one had a lot more joys in this life than the other.

While grieving of life’s losses may be ongoing, so is the joy Jesus gives us. God bless you as you see more of the purpose of pain and the continuing joy that comes from life’s grieving. Amen.