"A little while"

In today’s Gospel (John 16:16-20), our Lord prepares his disciples for the future:

A little while
and you will no longer see me,
and again a little while later
and you will see me.

On one level, our Lord is speaking of his death the next day (“and you will no longer see me”) as well as of his resurrection on the third day after that (“and you will see me”).

On another level, we can also understand our Lord as speaking of his Ascension (“and you will no longer see me”) as well as of his return in glory (“and you will see me”).

Our Lord also says this:

Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve,
but your grief will become joy.

Again, evil and worldly people rejoiced at our Lord’s death while his disciples were grief-stricken, but their joy knew no bounds following his resurrection.

And in the nearly two thousand years since our Lord’s Ascension, evil and worldly people seem to have had one decadent party after another while Christ’s faithful have had no shortage of reasons to grieve, weep, and mourn, but when our Lord comes again in glory, by the grace of God, our joy will know no end.

It may seem strange that two thousand years might be considered “a little while”, but as Saint Peter reminds us in 2 Peter 3:8:

Do not ignore this one fact, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day.

Sometimes our lives can seem to be dragging a long and slow time in pain, frustration and hopelessness.

But our Lord reminds us that no matter how long our days and years may sometimes feel, they are in truth but “a little while.”

Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve,
but your grief will become joy.

May the Lord Jesus keep us faithful to Him, no matter what, so that in his own time and way, we may partake of His comfort and His joy.