“Now is your time of grief”

It was Jesus leaving his disciples that stirred his comment to them, “Now is your time of grief” in John 16:22, because he knew they’d miss him terribly. They’d miss sitting and talking with him and asking questions when they were confused. They’d miss his love. They’d miss the peace and joy he exuded too.

Jesus also knew what they were in for after he left them, like “the world hating you” (15:18-19) and persecuting them just like they persecuted him (20). People would even “kill them believing they were doing God a service” (16:2). And while his disciples would “weep and mourn” at his leaving, “the world would be rejoicing” that he’d gone (16:20). So how could it be “for your good that I’m going away” (16:7)? 

Jesus answered that in the second part of John 16:22. “Now is your time of grief – but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” So yes, “You will grieve,” verse 20, “but your grief will turn to joy.” 

And their grief did turn to joy when he came back to them after he was killed. But that wasn’t the joy Jesus was really getting at, because as he said in verse 28, “I’m leaving the world and going back to the Father,” so he’d be leaving them again and this time permanently. So where would their joy come from then? 

Jesus answered that in verse 23, when he told them the time was coming when “you will no longer ask me anything,” because “my Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name.” Up to that point they’d never asked the Father directly for anything (24), because they’d always had Jesus to go to. But Jesus knew the real source of joy was his Father. It was in “asking and receiving” from the Father, therefore, that “your joy will be complete” (24).

Jesus wanted them to get the point that “the Father himself loves you” (27), so when asking the Father “in my name” it didn’t mean Jesus would do the asking on their behalf (26). Now they could go directly to the Father just as Jesus had done, and the Father himself would answer (15:16). And the reason he’d answer was “because you have loved me” (16:27), which is why we pray in Jesus’ name, in recognition of our love for him and the Father’s love for him for “entering our world” (28) to make our direct access to the Father possible. Which his disciples would need, because the Father is the expert at “Turning grief into joy”….(next blog)