June 5, 2015
""A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a
little while, and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one
another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not
see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am
going to the Father’?”” (John 16:16–17, ESV)
Now you see me, now you don't. Soon you won’t, but then you
will. I can try to imagine the confusion that Jesus disciples must have felt as
He told them that in a little while that they wouldn’t see Him, but in a little
while longer they would. Jesus had been preparing them for His leaving, and on
this last night with them He was focusing on its immediacy and preparing them
for their response. He had told them that He had to die. He had told them that
He would rise again. He had told them that after that He would then leave to
return to the Father. And, He told them that when He left that the Father would
send the Spirit to continue in them what had been begun. When the Spirit was to
come they would even do greater things He said.
Before going on to the next verses and having what He meant
clarified, I enjoyed a moment of being impressed that these words could have
easily been focused on either His death, burial, and resurrection or His
ascension and their eventual reunion in His presence. In the immediate context
Jesus was going to be crucified on the next day. That very night He was to be
arrested, leading to hasty trials, rejection, beatings, and the sentence of
death which was quickly carried out. He was taken down from the cross and His dead
body was again hastily placed in a tomb so as to not violate the Sabbath rules.
At that time it would be apparent to all that Jesus was dead. He was no longer
there with them. They could not see Him, and this part of His words was clearly
fulfilled. Then the most amazing thing and the foundation proving Him to truly
be who He said He is was that on the third day He took His life back up again.
It was then that He again appeared to His disciples and spent time with them
over the next forty days. According to the words of verses 16 and 17 this truly
was a season of in a little while you won’t see me, and then in a little while
you will.
But there is this other sense that leads to their more
permanent reunion—their eternal reunion. In Acts chapter 1 we read of Jesus’
ascension as He returned to the Father. This marked His last time that He was
visible to those who believed this side of the grave, and it is in the presence
of the Father that the Son remains today. It is in His presence that all of His
disciples have now entered with their passing from physical life into eternity.
For them there was a time of enduring great hardship, persecution, and even
death until that time came to pass, and I imagine for them that this time might
have seemed extremely long at times. But in the midst of all of this they were
privileged to see God work in and through them by the power of the Spirit to
accomplish the beginning of Christ’s church through the salvation of men from
all nations. What seemed long to them, changed at the moment of their passing
into what the apostle Paul called momentary light affliction in the face of
eternity. For the disciples it was truly a little while that they did not see
Him, and then they did and STILL DO!
For all who have believed since and who have now
passed through death, they have also seen their hope fulfilled as God’s gift of
salvation has led them into His presence. And for those of us who believe
today, having never met Jesus as the man, we live with the certain assurance
that He did come. He was crucified and buried, and He did rise again on the
third day just as the Scriptures had foretold. Because of this, we also live
with that promise that in a little while we will—we will see Him.
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