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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, an evil spirit tormented King Saul. And he became envious, cruel, bloodthirsty. He became a persecutor of David. He sought to kill him. That young man who was gentle, mild, patient, and gracious, many are the afflictions of the righteous, David prays. But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
About a thousand years later, the Jews from Antioch and Iconium stirred up the crowds to stone the Apostle Paul for the great sin of healing a man who couldn’t walk and preaching the living God to those who worship idols. After stoning Paul, the crowds dragged what they thought was the lifeless corpse of the Apostle out of the city. But when Paul’s disciples gathered around him, Paul stood up, and he encouraged their souls to continue in the faith. And he said to them, Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.
Many are the afflictions, beloved. Many are the tribulations. You newborn babes that the Heavenly Father has generated through the waters of baptism have, after all, been marked. You have received the seal, what the Greeks call the Sphragus. It is a mark whereby an owner indicates his possession. It is a brand by which a shepherd marks his flock. And it is a sign of enlistment, what the Romans called the sygnoculum, the mark by which the soldier bears the name of his general. The sign of the cross, which the candidate for baptism receives on the forehead and on the heart, shows that henceforth you belong to Christ. You are both a member of his flock and a soldier in his army.
As we heard last week, the good shepherd knows his sheep and he defends them. You now feed here in the Lord’s pastures, along with the sheep of the same flock. You feast on the bread that is God’s word, and here your shepherd prepares a table for you in the presence of your enemies. But today, we do well to remember that baptism is a sign of our enlistment in the Lord’s army. Christ is not only our shepherd, but he is our king who calls us to join in his ranks. We enter into the service of our king and we march with him on his campaigns. This is the church militant.
After the battle of Christ on the cross, each Christian soldier now bears this royal sign upon themselves. It is for this reason then that Paul many times speaks of tribulations as warfare and of the armor of God that God gives to his soldiers. Many are the afflictions. Some assault the body: pain, sickness, disease. Many other tribulations are there that assault us: sin, death, the devil, principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual wickedness.
But today we hear of a different affliction and a different warfare in the Lord’s deliverance. Listen closely to what our Lord says. 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. Weeping, lamentation, sorrow, grief, despair, consternation.
Today, dear soldiers, our Lord tells us of the battle for the heart. This is the battle of grief. This is the battle when all other battles have been lost. Sorrow is not to hear the report that an army far away comes. It is not to hear that an army is near. It is not that you fear you might lose someone. It is not even that an army now besieges the city. It is that the army has already burst through the gates, men and children already lay slain in the streets. This is despondency, the feeling of hopelessness.
I’m sure many of you have had your seasons of sorrow, and many still have them now, where it feels that all has been lost, and you just can’t go on anymore. I don’t know how better to describe the battle of grief than to turn to the book of Lamentations, where our Old Testament reading is from. Lamentations is a poem by the prophet Jeremiah, who witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem. It’s a prayer, it’s an outcry to God, it’s a tearful response to the city’s destruction, God’s holy city where he made his name to dwell.
This poem is one of sorrow, for all has already been lost, and the prophet places all this pain in the mouth of the city personified as Lady Zion, the bride widowed of her God, the mother bereaved of her children, all while her persecutors rejoice in the streets. It’s exactly what our Lord describes. You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. She who was once full of people now sits alone.
The book begins. She weeps bitterly, tears on her cheek. In the refrain of the book, she says there is no one to comfort her. She was once the glory of the world, and now she’s made a slave. Her children of hope, the promises of the future running through the streets, are dragged away captive in chains. Her body, once adorned, has been stripped naked for all to see. And in her shame, she can only groan and turn her face away.
Is there any sorrow like my sorrow, she asks. For God has sent fire to go down deep into her bones. She is trodden like a wine press. She says, I weep, my eyes flow with tears, for a comforter is far from me. I stretch out my hands for help, but no one helps. No one comforts me. Behold, O Lord, I am in distress, my stomach churns, my heart is turned within me. In the street the sword bereaves, in the home there is death, there is none to comfort me. My groans are many, my heart is faint, my eyes are spent with weeping because infants, babies faint in the streets. They faint like a slain man pouring out their lives into their mother’s bosoms. Their ruin is as vast as the sea, as the bodies of young and old cover the dust of the streets.
Who can heal? Who can help? She asks. How do you face sorrow when all has already been brought to an end? What does Lady Zion need? What does she lament over and over again above all else? She needs the comforter. Now notice in her grief, as I recounted it, Lady Zion never says there is no comforter. The comforter doesn’t exist, but that the comforter is far from her, that he’s not there.
That’s why I needed to go through this litany of grief, because now we can cherish her beautiful words of hope in our Old Testament reading. This is how she continues, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I will hope in him.
This is the key, dear saints. It is hope. Hope is that armor in the battle of grief. And in that hope, there is even joy. And that’s the name of our Sunday. Yubalate, rejoice. It’s an imperative. Yes, we weep, but we rejoice. Yes, weep.
Do you remember what St. Paul said in Romans? Romans 5, we have been justified by faith, so we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance character and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame.
In this veil of tears, we suffer just like the children of the world, and sometimes we suffer even more because we’re Christians. Joy does not mean we always feel happy. Joy means we can rejoice through it all because we have no fear of death. We have refuge from death. We do not suffer without hope, and our hope is to see our Lord’s beloved face for he promises you have sorrow now but I will see you again now we see in a mere dimly but then face to face in the very resurrected flesh of Christ is the steadfast love of the Lord that never ceases, the love that Paul says is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Our Lord calls upon the birth pangs of a woman, for sorrow is for a season, but joy everlasting. Weepeth may endure for a night, the psalmist says, but joy comes in the morning. The woman in labor rejoices because a man has been born. This is not any man. I don’t really like the translation, human being. It’s Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the dead. Christ is risen. He himself is our peace. His power is made perfect in our weakness.
And so now we have hope in the life-giving vision of our God, that though for a little while we do not see him, we will see him again. And when he appears, we shall be like him, John writes in his epistle, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Rejoice, Christ is risen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.