John 16:16-24--Your Sorrow Will Turn into Joy

John 16:16-24
English Standard Version

Your Sorrow Will Turn into Joy
16 “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” 17 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’?” 18 So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” 19 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’? 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. 21 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. 22 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. 23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

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Jesus again tells His disciples that He's going away in a little while and that they will grieve, but this time He tells that that their sorrow will be turned into joy because there will be a day in a little while when He will be back with them.  He compares it to a mother giving birth in that the mother goes through great pain and anguish for a short time, but after the child is born, it's all worth it and the mother no longer focuses on the pain.  Jesus is saying it's going to be like that for them as the Resurrection will change their perspective on everything and it can only be explained as new birth that leads to eternal life.  Jesus knows that He will have to go through great pain for a short time, but that He will be giving life to all those who belong to Him and who believe on His name.

The disciples are understandably confused because sometimes Jesus is talking about "going away" meaning that He's going to die and other times He's talking about "going away" talking about His returning to the Father in Heaven on Ascension Day.  Jesus had told them they would look for Him and would not be able to find Him and that where He was going they could not follow, and now He tells them that if they just wait a little bit, they will see Him again and their sorrow will be turned into joy.  They are understandably confused, but no one seems to want to ask Him to explain the apparent contradiction.  Jesus knows the question they have though and gives them the answer that they need (though I'm still not sure it helped a whole lot as we're told that their eyes were opened after the Resurrection so that they could understand all the words that Jesus had spoken to them).

Now I want to move to the part of this passage that gets taken out of context quite often as it's not read as part of the larger idea that Jesus has been talking about.  For quite some time, Jesus has been talking about giving the Holy Spirit to the disciples because He's going away and the Holy Spirit is going to take care of them while He's away.  I think this passage is talking about the disciples asking the Father to give them the Holy Spirit as Jesus has promised when Jesus is talking about their asking for anything in His name.  See Luke 11:13 for a cross-reference here where Jesus says, 13 "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”  I'm fairly certain that Jesus is not telling them to "name it and claim it" here, and the context of the conversation has not changed.  There is only one thing that Jesus has been talking about the Father giving to them and that Jesus has been talking about them needing to expect from Him and the Father when He goes away and Jesus is saying, "It's okay for you to ask for the Holy Spirit, because He's definitely going to be sent to you."  Asking for things "in the name of Jesus' is not an incantation, but is saying that we need to ask for things in accordance with the character and nature of Jesus so that we are asking for the things that He would ask for.  Since the Father loves the Son, He would not withhold any good thing that the Son would ask for (and the Son would only ask the Father for good things), so then if we are transformed into the likeness of Christ and have the "mind of Christ" as we are told that we do in 1 Corinthians 2:16, then we will ask for things that Christ would ask for and the Father will treat our request like it is coming directly from the Son and will gladly give us that which is asked for "in the name of Jesus."  How do we know the mind of Christ?  The Holy Spirit changes us for sure, but we also know the mind of Christ by reading the Word of God and letting it do its work to transform us.  (See James 1 for another example of how we are instructed to ask for wisdom and should expect to receive it because this is another gift we are promised we will definitely receive, if we ask in faith, because God already wants to give it to us).

Imagine how hard it would be for the disciples to be alone in the world between the time of the arrest and the Resurrection.  They didn't even have the Holy Spirit to comfort them yet like they would after Pentecost.  Jesus already knows the pain they will go through and He wishes that He could either stay with them or give them the Holy Spirit right now so they would be comforted during this time of great pain and sorrow, but it is not yet time for that--it is His time to die for the whole world and for all of His friends to desert Him and for Him to be betrayed by one of the ones that He loved.  Jesus is almost done encouraging His disciples and then will spend the last few hours telling them to watch and pray with Him while He prays what we call The High Priestly prayer (we'll get to that in John 17).  Then Jesus will be betrayed and arrested in John 18 (John's been alluding to this for a long time) and then we'll have Jesus' crucifixion and burial in John 19, the Resurrection of Jesus in John 20 and the some "loose ends" that Jesus ties up in John 21.