Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.
It has not yet happened that we experience only joy with no admixture of grief. But the grief that we experience while we continue to live our mortal lives on the earth is meant to be a sharing in the sufferings of Christ. And that union with Christ is meant to lead to increasingly unshakable joy. We are meant to become increasingly rooted in the power of the resurrection, less subject to vicissitudes of the world. Yet the closer we come to Jesus the more we will share his heart for the sufferings of the world. And to have joy even while having this compassion is only possible if we remain near to Jesus and learn to trust him as he himself trusted the Father.
Going forward there is some sorrow that we should leave behind. This is the worldly sorrow we experience because of our selfishness, because we can't get what we want, or because we get what we don't want, or because we can't keep what we have. But there is a Godly sorrow that produces repentance (see Second Corinthians 7:10), that is, that leads us ever closer to the heart of Christ, where true joy is found. Suffering, even that which apparently natural and morally neutral, united to that of Christ helps to redeem the world (see Colossians 1:24). That means that even our own daily difficulties are not so trivial as they seem since they have the potential to unleash resurrection power.
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived;
but when she has given birth to a child,
she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy
that a child has been born into the world.
The cross opened up the possibility for people to be born again by the Holy Spirit. Seeing us reborn was such a joy to Jesus that it made him forget, as it were, all of the pain of the cross. This new birth is meant to be so joyful to us that it entirely relatives all the sorrows that precede it. In fact, even those things that we previously counted as our joys become relativized, as for Paul who said, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (see Philippians 3:8).
So you also are now in anguish.
But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.
In the present life we are partially in anguish and partially filled with joy. But even here below we are meant to grow in joy by coming ever closer to the risen Lord, encountering him, and spiritually seeking his face. And yet, as great as the joy Jesus gives us in this present life can be, we look forward to still more. A day is coming when we will see him face to face. And on that day, if we remain faithful, we will receive a joy that will finally cast out all sorrow.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (see Revelation 21:4).
On that day we will ask for the one thing that can truly fulfill all of the desires of our hearts, God himself. And when make that request in Jesus name, and united to him, God will hold nothing back, and give himself to us.
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