A little while and you will no longer see me,
and again a little while later and you will see me.
The absence of Jesus is only ever for a little while in the big picture of eternity. Just as his three days in death were a fractional part of his earthly life so is the time between his ascension and second coming not even comparable to the age when we will see him again for all eternity.
“What does this mean that he is saying 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’?”
So they said, “What is this ‘little while’ of which he speaks?
We do not know what he means.”
The disciples didn't like the idea that Jesus would be taken from them even for a little while. It bothered them enough that they couldn't help discussing it with one another, but worried them enough that they couldn't ask Jesus to explain what his saying meant.
Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him
Jesus knew that the disciples were distressed about the saying, that they both did and didn't want to know what he meant. Even if they could not bring themselves to ask, nevertheless, Jesus wanted them to understand. It was important that he plant this seed of understanding so that when they experienced this 'little while', even though it shook them to the core, and scattered them away from him and each other, they would nevertheless not abandon hope.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”
We all experience these periods, this 'little while' during which our vision of Jesus is obscured. In our case, it is not his absence that causes this, since he promised to remain with his Church forever (see Matthew 28:20) But it is a normal part of our own spiritual growth to go through times of dryness or desolation when we can't rely on the consolations of experience in the same way. When we encounter such challenges we too must remember the promise of Jesus so that we don't lose hope. The Lord can make even dryness and desolation work for our good, refining and perfecting our love. But this only happens when we persevere, which is something that only our hope makes possible.
When we can't see Jesus clearly let us trust that he is still present, still, as ever, in his Father's house. We can and should continue to seek his presence just as Mary sought her Son (see Luke 2:41-52). We can face his absence in the same way that Jesus faced the challenge of the cross on the way to his Father's presence.
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (see Hebrews 12:2).
Even when we can't see Jesus clearly we need the hope that enables us to continue to search out his presence. This becomes a concrete necessity because circumstances often make his activity in our midst hard to recognize.
When they opposed him and reviled him,
he shook out his garments and said to them,
But like Paul, if we don't find him in one place, we can look in another until we discover him once more, probably with an even greater solidity to the reality of his presence.
So he left there and went to a house
belonging to a man named Titus Justus, a worshiper of God;
his house was next to a synagogue.
Crispus, the synagogue official, came to believe in the Lord
along with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians
who heard believed and were baptized.
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