But The World Will Rejoice

I tell you the solemn truth, you will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice; you will be sad, but your sadness will turn into joy. – John 16:20 (NET)

These words from Jesus follow statements like “But now I am going to the One Who sent Me” (16:5a), “it is to your advantage that I am going away” (16:7b), and “In a little while you will see Me no longer; again after a little while, you will see Me” (16:16). Though the disciples did not understand what He was talking about (16:18b), we have the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge that Jesus was speaking of His pending crucifixion and Resurrection. He goes on to say that “though you have sorrow now… I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you” (16:22). Jesus was fully reliant upon His understanding of the promises of the Father, as it related to the messiah, that suffering and death was necessary, but also that the messiah, having suffered on behalf of all of Israel (God’s chosen people from Abraham through this day) and the creation, would be raised up from the dead.

Generally, when we read about the world rejoicing at Jesus going away, or going into death, we think about the “wicked” and “evil” sinners exalting in jubilation over the fact that the One that was pointing out their sins and making them feel bad about themselves, was removed from their presence, never to be heard from again. In doing this, we tend to point an unwarranted finger of judgment, especially as we consider that it was while we were yet sinners that Jesus died for us (Romans 5:8). As we think in this way, we are naturally led to the final verse of this chapter, where we read that “In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage---I have conquered the world” (16:33b). We get ourselves hung up on that which applies to us---the trouble and suffering---thinking of this as the wicked sinners of this world---the ones that rejoiced at Jesus being killed---as being against us because of our trust in Jesus, forgetting or not realizing that the more important part of the statement is that Jesus has conquered the world. We also forget that part of what we are called to do, if we are truly in union with Christ, is to, by the motivation and empowerment of the Spirit of God that is so heavily spoken of in this chapter, enter into the trouble and suffering of the world. We do this so that we might, as the Apostle Paul says, rejoice in sufferings and fill up in our physical bodies what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ (Colossians 1:24).

We can empathize and sympathize, making the cares and concerns (troubles and suffering) of the fatherless and the widows (and those in prison or in need of clothing or a cup of water) our own cares and concern. We can enter into this suffering, and know that it is worthwhile, and know that our work will remain, precisely because we serve the risen King, Who has conquered the world and is ruling it even now. Does this not seem to be more in line with the Spirit of the Word?

So how should we look at this issue of the world rejoicing? Is it negative or positive? Perhaps it is worthwhile to see it in the positive light of God’s intentions for His once-good-though-fallen-creation? The Apostle Paul writes in Romans about the creation (the world) itself, having been subjected to futility through no fault of its own, groaning and suffering under the bondage of decay, while awaiting its liberation from the same (8:21-22). So when Jesus went away into death, His disciples were sad, because they did not expect a Resurrection. Somehow, the world itself knew that with Jesus’ death, a Resurrection was coming, and it rejoiced that its new day was about to dawn. Yes, Jesus’ Resurrection marked the beginning of God’s new creation, and the inauguration of the kingdom of heaven on earth. A new world had begun. In this world Jesus reigned, having conquered the power of death that had ruled the world since Adam, by making it possible for those that lived with a trusting allegiance to Him, to overcome the fear of death, with the hope of their own resurrection into the world that Jesus now inhabited---the world of the coming together of heaven and earth.

To convey this, Jesus uses the imagery of a woman giving birth, experiencing pain and distress because the time has come for her to deliver (John 16:21). Is it not interesting that Jesus, in speaking of His death and Resurrection, in full knowledge that it was what was going to mark the beginning of a new age, resorts to speaking of the pain of childbirth that was introduced into the world because of the fall? The woman giving birth groans and suffers, but when the “new human being has been born into the world” (16:21b), she forgets her suffering and she rejoices. Is this not what happened when Jesus came forth from the tomb? Was not a new human being born into the world? Indeed, something more than what we think of as a human being was born into the world. Those who served as eyewitnesses of this exalted individual struggled to find the words to adequately convey what they were experiencing in their interactions with this One that was the firstfruits of the new creation---a being now fully and truly human---with a physical, resurrected body fully animated by the Spirit of God, bearing the divine image as God had intended for the crowning glory of His creation.