Our Lord Joyfully 'Mothers' Us

JUBILATE

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

APRIL 22, 2018

ST. JOHN 16:16

Our Lord Joyfully 'Mothers' Us

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

ST. JOHN 16:20–21 Amen, Amen, I tell you: You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. A woman giving birth has pain, because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of her joy that a person has been born into the world. ENGLISH HERITAGE VERSION

The most painful childbirth in the history of the world was the birth of the Holy Christian Church. And the Church was born through the pain and suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was a long and difficult labor, but in the end Christ was filled with joy to see His own children, alive and well.

Think of a mother's labor. All the discomfort, all the preparation, all the waiting have led up to that time of delivery. It is painful, but when it is finally over and the baby gives out her first cry, the mother—no matter how tired she is—is filled with joy. She is filled with joy because her child is alive. In a little while after the nurses have sent the happy family home, those cries might have the opposite effect. Yet the joy of mothering is still joy despite all the weariness of labor and then the years of caring for that child.

Billy Collins was the poet laureate of the United States. He wrote a poem called The Lanyard. It begins with him coming across the word “lanyard” in the dictionary and sparks a memory of a years-gone-by summer camp:

… a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that's what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-clothes on my forehead,

and then led me out into the air light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-toned lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

We are like that little boy. We think we can repay our mothers for all they do: enduring our peevishness, serving us food, getting up at night to help us be sick into a bucket. But our mothers even do this: they receive our little lanyards with joy.

This is the joy of our Lord on Easter. He comes to His own in joy because they are alive. They are only alive because He underwent the most painful childbirth ever, the agony of the cross.

He explained to them what was going to happen before it happened, sometimes clearly, at times in ways that would only be clear later. Our text for this Sunday is one those that would be clear later:

ST. JOHN 16:16 In a little while you are not going to see me anymore, and again in a little while you will see me, because I am going away to the Father. ENGLISH HERITAGE VERSION

He spoke this on the night He was betrayed. A little while is His passion, His suffering and death, and His resurrection.

When we explain life to our kids, we can become frustrated when they haven't listened. The disciples at the tomb, on the way to Emmaus, and in the locked room were just like frightened children. They had heard Jesus, but they hadn't taken His words to heart. And so even though on Easter they were still afraid, He did not become frustrated. He was glad and filled with joy.

In these middle days of Easter, after the lilies have started to wilt and we have turned to more pressing matters, let Jesus' joy fill you with joy. As we wait for more than just a little while and as we live lives of sorrow and loss, hang on to Jesus' promise:

ST. JOHN 16:22 So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. ENGLISH HERITAGE VERSION

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In Jesus' Name. Amen.

God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Thanks be to God!