Life has been a bit rough for me, lately: friends have been diagnosed with serious illnesses, a close family member is having surgery, some crises at work. While those things are part of everyone's life, sometimes it feels like they are ESPECIALLY part of life at the moment, and it's hard to remember Easter joy. So this week, I've been focusing on enjoying bits and glimpses of joy that are part of this world God has given: my kids' ecstatic pleasure in finding ants and spiders creeping around in the garden, and the hike we did at Germantown over the holiday, where we saw flowers in every color of the rainbow, including green.

 

This week's readings speak well to both pain and trouble in life and the glimpses and bits of joy we have in Jesus.

 

The gospel reading (John 16:20-23) discusses what life will seem like for the Christians when Jesus has ascended to heaven.  They will be weeping and mourning while the rest of the world seems oblivious to their pain. The scripture seems to suggest that the pain is due to the fact that Jesus has gone away from them.  Yet the scripture also goes a bit deeper than that: the analogy of the woman in anguish due to childbirth suggests that the disciples’ own anguish might come not only from missing Jesus, but also from the “labor” that they do in Jesus’ name.  In the midst of labor, the woman does not experience the joy of holding the child, only knows the difficult and painful work of getting the child into the world.   

Christians, too, are meant to be like that.  We do the difficult work of loving our neighbors (and our enemies), witnessing to the gospel in a world where many people do not see Jesus as remotely significant, striving every day to be more Christ-like.  Of course we would want to see some sign that our labor is doing something, anything – but unfortunately, today’s reading speaks largely of the pain and grief of those labors while in the midst of them, not the joy of seeing the results. Two thousand years later, Christians still hope and pray and do this work, even though it looks like a futile effort to non-Christians.  Sometimes, Christians themselves give up, not seeing the fruit of any work they do. 

Every once in a while, though, God gives us a glimmer of that future joy.  Consider today’s reading from Acts, where Peter has a vision from the Lord.  He does not see Jesus face-to-face, and yet still is able to receive some comfort from him.  Peter tells the others that they are to keep witnessing to Christ, even though that is leading to the arrest and deaths of Christians elsewhere in the empire, because God will protect them.  And indeed, incredibly, the Roman ruler in that region does not arrest the Christians, saying that it is all religious doctrine and nothing to do with him.  If it were a crime, he says, then he would feel compelled to do something.  So what happens?  The crowd purposely commits a crime, in full view of the government office, as an attempt to get the Christians arrested, but no arrests are made.  God has, indeed, protected the Christians.

For us reading this, part of the point might be to see that even in the actions of others, God might be speaking to us, just as some day, we will see and know God face to face.   Jesus ascends to heaven, but does not leave us alone in grief.  Every once in a while, there is a glimpse of joy. 

-        Jana M. Bennett