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Love

Teaching Text: John‬ ‭16‬:‭ 16–22

Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”

At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

Themes

Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:

Built Up in love
Equipped to be Ambassadors of Reconciliation
Series Intro:
- So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
  Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
  – Ephesians 4:11–16
- The Kingdom of God is most accurately represented when all the saints are equipped and participating in the mission of God to love show his love to our world.
- The word EQUIP was used to refer to…
  - THE SETTING OF A BROKEN BONE - things are are broken in our lives being healed.
  - THE TEACHING OF A SOLDIER TO FIGHT - to be made ready of for struggle of life and the way of love in Christ by the Spirit
  - THE SUPPLY OF WHAT IS NEEDED FOR ALONG JOURNEY - that we would have what is need for the long journey of life
  - THE RESTORATION OF SOMETHING TO ITS ORIGINAL CONDITION - maybe its been worn out, beaten down, damaged, and it gets restored to like new…

Formation

Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:

Jesus is having a extended last conversation with His disciples.
He is trying to give them a sense of what they can expect for the future. You will weep, He says. But your grief will turn to joy and you will see Me again and no one will take away your joy.
- “I’m going to die and you will be sad. And then I’m going to be raised from the dead and you will be joyful again”
And He’s making one thing very clear:
- Certainty of tears and joy
  - That both weeping and rejoicing are certain. Whatever else happens in this world, we will have both grief and joy.

Weeping
- We live in a world that is tinged with death. The separation experienced in the fall was comprehensive—it spread to every area of life.
- Consider the things in your life that is grief worthy right now…
  - Pain
  - Loss
  - Take note of them
- You will weep over every thing in this world that is not yet fully redeemed.

Rejoicing
- The most inexhaustible source of joy we have is God’s love for us.
- In Tish Warren’s book, Prayer in the Night, she leans on the writings of Henri Nouwen. She writes:
  - Henri Nouwen described joy as “the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing–sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death–can take that love away.”... “It is a choice,” he says, “based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing… can take God away from us.” –Tish Warren, Prayer in the Night

There are echoes of Paul here: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
– Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭38‬-‭39‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Just gazing for an extended period at a spring bulb pushing up from dark soil or a robin hopping across the lawn–or at anything in nature—will reveal God’s utter gratuity and the sacredness of every created thing.
– Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things

When Job has suffered the loss of everything in his life, God finally appears and begins speaking. He doesn’t comfort Job, but he speaks of all his creative work, sustaining the world in every way imaginable

And I think God is pointing out:
- (1) is that he is always working
- And (2) that everything is a gift.

To choose joy is to see all existence as a gift, which is why the practice of joy is inseparable from the practice of gratitude. Gratitude gives birth to joy because gratitude teaches us to receive life as a gift in the moment we’re in, regardless of what lies ahead.
— Tish Warren, Prayer in the Night

Both of these authors brush up against this idea of joy as a choice. For those of you who listen to Lectio 365, every morning there is an opening psalm that speaks to an aspect of God’s character that is being celebrated, and the reader says “I choose to rejoice in God’s steadfast love today, joining with the ancient praise of all God’s people in the words of Psalm”

Both joy and grief are meant to be shared
Paul says this:
- Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ‭‭
  – Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭15‬ ‭NIV

In the letter to the Galatians he writes:
- Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
  – Galatians‬ ‭6‬:‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬
Ask your group:
- What grief can we share the burden of with you?
- What joys can we celebrate with you?

“Trauma is when severe emotional pain cannot find a relational home in which it can be held.”
– Robert Stolorow

A shared burden is lighter.
Joy shared is multiplied and magnified

The sharing of grief and joy requires vulnerability

Weeping and rejoicing are bound together in love

The psalmist writes:
- Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.
  – ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭126‬:‭5‬-‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬