“Your Sorrow Will Turn Into Joy”
Scripture Readings: Daniel 7:13-14; Luke 24:50-53; JOHN 16:7, 20 (text); Acts 1:6-11
May 1, 2016 • Download this sermon (PDF)
Dear congregation of Christ: All of us are very familiar with the famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, when the two lovebirds declared their love for one another. Before they parted, Juliet, expressed her sorrow before Romeo left, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
God made man a creature of relationship. So whenever marriages are broken, sweethearts separate, friendships sour, parents say goodbye to their children who go to college, or a beloved family member or friend passes away, there is such great sorrow.
Our text today is part of the farewell discourse of Jesus in Chapters 13-17 of the Gospel of John, when he taught his disciples before he said goodbye. In our text, Jesus tells them that he will go away “in a little while,” but will also see them again “in a little while.” So the disciples were confused, not understanding what Jesus was telling them. When it became clear to them that Jesus was really leaving them, they were sorrowful.
Jesus was telling them about his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. This Lord’s Day, we commemorate the ascension of Jesus into heaven. On the fortieth day after his resurrection, which is on Thursday, May 5, in the sight of his disciples, he was taken up into heaven by a cloud. Jesus told them in his farewell that their sorrow will turn into joy. And in fact, the disciples were joyful when Jesus left them in a cloud at his ascension.
Why were they joyful, instead of sorrowful, when Jesus left them? We will study these and other questions today as we study, “Your Sorrow Will Turn Into Joy,” under three headings: first, Because He is Our Advocate in Heaven; second, Because He is the Guarantee of Our Own Ascension; and third, Because He Sends Us the Holy Spirit.
Because He is Our Advocate in Heaven
In our text in John 16:7, Jesus tells his disciples, “it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” Here, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Helper.” He uses the same word in John 14:16, when he referred to the Holy Spirit as “another Helper.” If the Spirit is “another Helper,” then who is the other one?
The other “Helper” is Jesus himself. The Greek word translated “Helper” is parakletos, so some prefer to use the English transliteration “paraclete.” This word means “one who appears in another’s behalf, mediator, intercessor, helper.” [ref]Walter Bauer, et. al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., (Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 766.[/ref] We may think of a lawyer in court standing by the side of the defendant. This is why a defense lawyer is also called “counselor” or an “advocate.” The word “counselor” is used by HCSB, and “advocate” is used by NIV. In the context in which John uses the word here, “advocate” and “counselor” are the best translations compared with “comforter” (KJV) and “helper” (ESV, NASB).
This is why Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 49 says that our first benefit from the ascension of Christ is “He is our Advocate in the presence of His Father in heaven.” How is Christ our Advocate in heaven? Since he lived in perfect righteousness before God, he is qualified to represent us as our Lawyer or Advocate in the divine courtroom in heaven. Because he acted as our Substitute on the cross, dying instead of us for all our sins, he vindicates us as our Advocate before his Father in heaven. This is why in 1 John 2:1, almost all translations use “advocate” for Christ the Savior: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1). Paul refers to Jesus as “the only mediator between God and man” (1 Tim 2:5). And Hebrews 8:1 calls him as our great High Priest who represents us before God in heaven.
In this sense as our Perfect Savior, he is our Advocate. But Christ is not only our Advocate defending us; the Spirit is another Advocate because he continues the work of Christ on earth. We will talk about the work of the Spirit after Jesus ascended into heaven in our last point.
So dear Christian, do not fear Judgment Day, because Jesus Christ will be there as your Advocate. Because of his sacrifice on the cross for your sins, he is able to defend you from your sins. Then, God the Father will declare you “Not Guilty!” and welcome you into heaven, “Well done, good and faithful servant … Enter into the joy of your master” (Mat 5:21).
Because He is the Guarantee of Our Own Ascension
The second benefit we receive from the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ is that he is our “sure pledge, that He as the Head, will also take us, His members, up to Himself.” Where do we find this in the Bible? In John 14, Jesus promises his disciples, “In my Father’s house are many rooms … I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am there you may be also” (John 14:2-3). On our last day on earth, whether on our death or when Jesus returns from heaven, he will take us up to his Father’s house, heaven itself. This will be the complete fulfillment of God’s promise that he will dwell with us forever.
This is why Jesus says, “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” (John 3:13). But what about Enoch and Elijah, two holy men of old? They too were taken up into heaven while they were still alive, but they did not come down from heaven. We find the answer in our reading of Daniel 7:13-14. Here, Daniel sees a vision, “with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.” The “son of man” refers to God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity.
How do we know that this Being is not Enoch or Elijah? First, in the Bible, only God rides on the clouds (Psa 104:3; Isa 19:1). Second, this “son of man” is the King of an eternal kingdom whose subjects are “all peoples, nations, and languages.” In the New Testament, Christ is the only One acknowledged and confessed as the eternal King of kings and Lord of lords (Phl 2:10-11; Rev 11:15; 19:16). This is why the Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy when he claimed the title “Son of Man,” the title of the Divine Messiah (Mat 8:20; 24:30; 26:64).
Enoch and Elijah’s ascension into heaven were foretastes of Jesus’ ascension. Note that Jesus, as he blessed his disciples, was taken up by a cloud. He ascended into heaven, body and soul. On our death, our souls are taken up into heaven, leaving our bodies behind on earth, waiting for the great resurrection. And this is also how all believers will be taken up into heaven on the last day: body and soul.
So this is also a great comfort to all believers. Jesus’ promise to prepare a place for us in heaven and take us with him there is not an empty promise. This is why he prayed before his death, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). And Paul also assures us that Christ has “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6).
Do not doubt that we will be seated with him in heaven, for even in this life, we already have a foretaste of our heavenly existence. We already share in Christ’s kingship in this world, because we fight our war against sin and the devil. No man or any other creature on earth or in heaven has authority over our salvation, because God promised to preserve us. And we also rule over as vice-regents of God’s creation, subduing it, nourishing it, and protecting it.
Because He Sends Us the Holy Spirit
The third and last benefit Christians receive from the ascension of Jesus is that he sends us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee. In this age, the Spirit and Christ in his humanity cannot co-exist on earth, so he first has to go back to heaven. In his humanity, Jesus is limited to be at one place at one time. He can only teach, preach and counsel in one place at one time. But the Spirit is omnipresent, everywhere in the universe, indwelling all true believers in the whole world.
Jesus said that once he returns to heaven, all believers will be able to “do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do” (Jn 14:12) What are these “greater works” and how is this possible? Are believers more powerful than Jesus? In his three years of earthly ministry, Jesus preached and taught the Gospel all throughout Judea and some places outside of it. He performed many signs and wonders in the presence of multitudes, but only 120 believed (Acts 1:15).
But after the Holy Spirit was poured out on his disciples ten days after his ascension, 3,000 people from all the Roman empire believed in Christ after one sermon by Peter. From that day, the apostles and other disciples spread the good news of salvation in Christ alone to the whole world. They even performed many signs and wonders in every place they preached. The whole world was turned upside by these 12 Apostles and thousands of believers. In terms of scope, they fulfilled Jesus’ prophecy of “greater works”!
And what was different between Jesus’ three-year ministry and the ministry of his disciples? It was the pouring out of the Spirit on that Pentecost Sunday, after which they were empowered to do these greater things. But the pouring out of the Spirit did not only enable them to do greater things.
One of the most comforting promises of Scripture is that the Spirit is our guarantee. Paul says that believers “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Eph 1:13-14). In sealing us with the Spirit, God promises to preserve us till the end.
Also, since we have an inheritance waiting for us in heaven, the Spirit serves as a guarantee, or down payment, to our inheritance (2 Cor 1:21-22; 5:5). The Spirit is like earnest money when we are buying a house, a promise to the seller of our intention to complete the purchase. God promises, “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ,” that is, when he returns from heaven (Phl 1:6).
Another benefit of the pouring out of the Spirit is that believers are now able to seek not only earthly things, but even more so, those things which are heavenly. Our earthly possessions and relationships are not our true treasure. All our lasting treasures can be found only in heaven, so Paul exhorts us, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:1-4).
Let us, like Abraham, look forward to our true homeland, the heavenly city. Our forefathers “all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb 11:10-14). Therefore, Christ encourages us, “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:1-2).
Dear friends, these promises by Jesus are the reasons why the disciples overcame their sorrow at his departure. Like the disciples, you are to trust Christ is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God in heaven. There, he defends us successfully as our Advocate before his Father in the divine courtroom in heaven. He is able to win our acquittal of our sins because of his sacrificial death on the cross. You are to trust that he guarantees our own ascension into heaven on the last day. And you are to praise God that he has sent the Spirit to seal our salvation, guarantee our eternal inheritance, and enable us to look forward to our heavenly home.
When he ascended into heaven, “he led a host of captives,” all true believers to his dwelling-place with God. And for the church, “he gave gifts to men,” apostles, prophets, shepherds and teachers of his flock, the church (Eph 4:8).
Jesus did not leave us as orphans. He gave us the Spirit to defend us from the devil’s attacks; to comfort us in our earthly sufferings; and to send our prayers and supplications to the Father’s throne of grace. And he gave the church pastors and elders to nourish her with his Word and sacraments. And in the fullness of time, Jesus will return from his heavenly throne to take us up to our dwelling-places in heaven.
