Jesu Juva
St. John 16:12-22
May 18, 2025
Easter 5C
Dear saints of our Savior~
When it comes to birth and death, it seems like death gets all the attention. Death gets all the headlines. When was the last time you saw a birth notice published? When was the last time you saw an obituary? Any news story about any disaster would not be complete without providing the “death toll.” It’s the death toll that conveys how serious things are. It’s the death toll that helps us put each disaster in the proper perspective. There was a tornado in St. Louis on Friday . . .
Thankfully, today’s gospel directs us away from death and the end of life, to think about birth and the beginning of life. Jesus wants us to ponder pregnancy. Contemplate life. Be mindful of your birth. You know, it’s possible to die alone. But when you’re born, you’re never alone. Another person gave birth to you, without your asking and without your doing. Life is a gift because you are given life from another life. That’s the only way it works. Life begets life.
Talking about childbirth is, of course, a delicate subject. We must tread lightly. We need to avoid veering into TMI territory. But we must listen carefully to the little pregnancy parable Jesus gives us today. Jesus is probably the one man—the one male—who can speak with absolute authority on the matter of pregnancy and childbirth, labor and delivery.
Jesus chose to talk about pregnancy and new life on the night before His death. Jesus had a lot to say to His disciples that night: Now you see me; then you won’t see me; then you will see me again. The disciples had a hard time keeping up with all of this. But Jesus was simply giving them yet another prediction of His death and resurrection. In a little while, by the close of that very day, Jesus would be dead and buried. His disciples would see Him no longer. But then, in a little while (on the third day to be precise) Jesus would rise from the dead, and they would see Him again, and their sorrow would turn to joy.
It’s on that point of sorrow turning to joy that Jesus tells His pregnancy parable: When a woman is giving birth, He says, 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. 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.
Jesus speaks about labor and delivery with terms like “sorrow” and “anguish.” The old King James Version describes it with grave solemnity as a time of “travail.” But let’s not forget that the difficulties that attend childbirth are not merely medical, but theological. Pain wasn’t a part of God’s original plan for procreation. But the fall into sin ruined everything, including child birth. God declared to the woman in Genesis 3: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children” (v.16).
Modern medicine has done much to make childbirth safer and less traumatic. But to really understand what Jesus means we first need to understand this about pregnancy: before there were ultrasounds and epidurals and C-sections—childbirth was always risky business—quite literally a matter of life and death.
Luther described the woman in childbirth as being utterly alone: “No one can help her,” he writes, “The whole creation cannot save her from this hour. It rests alone in the power of God. The midwife and others . . . can give her some comfort, but they cannot save her from her travail. She must pass through it and risk her life in it.” Her only hope, Luther concludes, is God alone (Day by Day, p.191).
This lesson on labor and delivery is for all of us, too. When we feel most alone—when we are terrified and afraid—when the weight of the world bears down on us—when death surrounds us—our only hope is God alone. And He is the God of life—the God of new life and new birth. He’s the God who sent His Son to labor on the cross for our deliverance from sin and death. Only He can help when help is most needed. When we are at our weakest, He is at His strongest. When we are most alone, He is most with us to save.
So far I’ve painted childbirth in rather grim terms; but there’s another side to this coin. For once the baby is born, Jesus notes, something like a miracle takes place. During those tired, teary-eyed minutes after the baby is born comes the miracle of post-partum peace. “When she’s delivered the baby,” Jesus says, “she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born.”
Here’s what we need to take away from this pregnancy parable: The Christian life with its anguish and suffering and travail will one day be forgotten and wiped away by the joy of the resurrection, the new creation, the new heaven and the new earth—which comes by faith as a gift to all who trust in Jesus. It’s like where St. Paul says in Romans 8 that our present sufferings aren’t even worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. On that day when God wipes away every tear, there shall be neither mourning nor pain anymore. When Jesus makes everything new, the anguish of today won’t even be worth recalling. Now you have sorrow Jesus says; then you will have everlasting joy.
And you get that eternal joy in much the same way that you were born. Someone else did the labor. Someone else did the work. You are exclusively on the receiving end of things. The hard work of labor and deliverance is done—and Jesus did it. The old you with all your sins and all your death—the Old Adam with his rebellion and selfishness and lust and pride—it’s all done away with in the death of Jesus. It is finished. He has saved us from our sins. The old has gone and the new has come. And now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So, here’s where we’re at: Today, right now, we have anguish and sorrow. And in the life of the world to come our anguish will be turned to joy. The question is, how do we live today, here and now? As those baptized into Christ, as brothers and sisters in Christ, how do we live in the promise of what is yet to come? Well, even today, death is giving way to life. We live each day as though we were pregnant. We endure the discomfort. We accept the inconvenience. We expect that suffering will never be far off. But, we live each day in the joy and anticipation of the new life that’s coming—the life that Jesus earned for us by His death and resurrection.
Each day we get busy living. In one of my favorite movies, a wrongly convicted prison inmate reaches a conclusion about how to go forward. He’s innocent, but must suffer each day in prison for a crime he did not commit. One day he says “It’s time to get busy living or get busy dying.” Each day we’re faced with those same choices. We can deal with suffering and disappointment by making choices that lead to death. We can develop crutches to help us “cope” with pain: alcohol, anger, food, sex—we can learn to lean on such things—learn to trust such things—make such things our idols. Or, we can get busy living—living the life we have been given in Jesus.
With Jesus, there’s always new life—death must give way to life. The Small Catechism teaches us that being baptized means that each day a new man emerges and arises from within us. A new person is born from within us to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Your life moves onward and upward with Jesus. Your life is pregnant with His promises.
Today Jesus tells us what to expect while we are expecting—what to expect as we expectantly wait to be delivered to the life of the world to come: “You will have sorrow now,” Jesus says, “but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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