Sermon for The Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 26, 2026.
“You have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” This is our sermon text. John 16:22.
It’s the truth that life is hard. It’s full of sorrow. As a general rule, our sin-filled world is a sad world where there is a lot of difficulty and darkness. Pain. Heartache. Disease. Death. Everybody suffers. Everyone’s a sinner surrounded by sinners. It weighs on the heart.
But that’s not what Jesus is talking about when He tells His disciples that they, and by extension, we, will have sorrow now. He’s not talking about the general reality of life in a sin-corrupted creation. He’s specifically talking about the Christian sorrow of being away from Him. Take a look at verses 19 and 20 of our Gospel reading.
“Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, ‘Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, “A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me”? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.’”
The world will rejoice while we weep and lament over not being able to see Jesus because He has ascended to the Father. It’s this separation from Christ that causes the Christian sorrow in our text. The world’s joy isn’t in line with our Introit, Psalm 66:1-2, where we said, “Shout for joy to God, all the earth. Sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise.”
No, the world isn’t rejoicing in God, but because they think the King is gone. The mice will play when the cat’s away, as they say. Our unbelieving friends and family rejoice because they’re living in willful ignorance, telling themselves that there’s no God, or if there is, since He’s not visibly present to refute their claims, He happens to be exactly how they want Him to be, cool with everything they want to do all the time. They’ve convinced themselves that all that matters in life is how much fun they can have, how much money they can accumulate, how many people they can sleep with, how many victories they can achieve. It’s playtime for them, because we can’t see the Lord.
This is an emphasized aspect of our Gospel text. Seeing the Lord. Six times we read about seeing and not seeing Jesus. The world loves not being able to see Him. Their wicked rejoicing will come to an end, however, as John includes a seventh seeing in his record—our sermon text, where Jesus says, “but I will see you again.”
He will come again, and when He does, our sorrow will end, and our hearts will rejoice, and no one will be able to take our joy from us. Praise be to God!
And yet… our hearts ought to feel a bit of the sting of the Law as we meditate on John 16, because truth be told, we rejoice with the world more often than not. We actually like that we can’t see Jesus, because if He were standing right in front of us, well, we wouldn’t do what we do, would we? We wouldn’t commit the sins that we’ve convinced ourselves are not a big deal. We would repent of a lot more. And need to repent of a lot less if Jesus were always visibly present in our lives. But since He’s not here, so we think, we can rejoice with the world, practically speaking. We’re not usually so brazen as to say that quiet part out loud. I only got a little tipsy. I mean, it’s 2026, come on, the sex was consensual, so what if we’re not married? Yeah, I could’ve gone to church. I could’ve received Christ’s very Body and Blood at His altar, been in His presence where He promised to be with us, but then I wouldn’t have been able to do the thing I prefer doing. What is it? Going to the lake? Brunch with a friend? Getting ready for the BBQ? Watching so-and-so’s game? Sleep in? Just staying home? So I spoke badly about so-and-so; she deserved it. He had it coming. Everyone lies, no and then, if it’s for a good reason, no harm/no foul.
Count the ways you rejoice with the world in one day, friends. I was ashamed when I made a serious effort to do it last Tuesday, when I was working on this sermon. I was appalled at how much I like not being able to see Jesus. The words of our introit crashed through my self-denial. “Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds!… Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.”
Do I want to come and see what God has done? Do I want to “let the sound of his praise be heard”? Well, not if I could be doing something else. Not if the game’s on. Not if I could be camping. Not if… Not if I could get away with not. That’s the truth for all of us. Not all the time. But too often. The world’s enticing, and well, we haven’t seen Jesus face-to-face in 2000 years. We grow weary of suffering. Why weep and lament when you can rejoice like everybody else?
Forgive me, Lord!
Forgive us all for living as free people who use our freedom as a cover-up for evil, instead of living in your grace for the sake of our neighbors, remaining firm in the faith so that they would see us doing good deeds and glorify you on the day of visitation. It’s a gracious thing, Christian, to endure sorrow. We cannot see Jesus in the flesh as we would like to, but that doesn’t mean we cannot shout for joy to God and sing the glory of his name. Jesus Christ was crucified for you, brother. He was killed for you Christian! And while we faint and grow weary, He does not. In fact, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.” (Is. 40:29) For you who wait for the Lord, He will renew your strength. He will, as Isaiah says, “mount [you] up with wings like eagles.”
He suffered so that your suffering would be short-lived, so that you would rejoice when He sees us again, when He comes again in glory, making it so that no one will ever be able to take your joy from you, making it so that you will never weep again, you won’t lament—you will never again know sorrow, not the general kind that afflicts us all as sinners living with sinners in a sin-infested world, and not the specific Christian sorrow that comes from not seeing Jesus. He will come again and remain with us forevermore. It’s for this reason that we were bold to pray our collect of the Day. Let’s pray it again right now.
“Almighty God, you show those in error the light of Your truth so that they may return to the way of righteousness. Grant faithfulness to all who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s Church that they may avoid whatever is contrary to their confession and follow all such things as are pleasing to You; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen!
Rev. Tyrel Bramwell 
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