“A little while”.

That term is used 7 times in today’s Gospel. It’s pretty hard to miss it. Obviously, we are meant to pay attention.
“A little while”. What is a little while? It seems like a pretty subjective term. Your “little while” may be different than my definition of a “little while”. It is an indefinite term. Is it 10 minutes, 2 hours, weeks, many years? How does it compare to a “long while”? And what amount of our own perception affects our understanding and expectation when we hear someone say: “a little while”?

Have you ever noticed how our perception of time changes based on what we are doing or what we are expecting or what we are experiencing? If you are enjoying something, having fun, time seems to fly by. For example, if you like sports, a game can take 2-3 hours, but you don’t care. It feels like no time at all. How often have we given an answer like “in a little while” to our family, our chores or obligations, while watching television, playing video games, or something else like that and suddenly that “little while” has become a “long while”?

But then, if you are working on something that you don’t like, or with something repetitive, or are in a meeting that has no relevance to your work, time can feel like it drags. A “little while” feels like a “long while” An hour can seem like 3 hours, or longer. If we are experiencing pain or stress, if we are sick, each moment can seem like an eternity.

What also can seem like a long, long time, is if we are looking forward to something. Waiting is so difficult. We learned that even as a child. When a child asks their parent when they are going to eat, play, or do something fun, if the parent answers: “in a little while”… Even if the delay is only 10 minutes or half an hour, to that child it might as well be 3 hours or a lifetime. How often did you as a child ask or have you been asked as a parent after “a little while” now? Now? How much longer? Then finally “Come on!”

How often are you and I still like a little child when it comes to our perspective and relationship with God? When we want something from God, we want it now! We get impatient, even angry at God! Yet, how often, are we reluctant to give an answer to God when he tells us to repent, to stop doing what is wrong, to stop doing what is harmful to our bodies or to our spiritual well being. “Come back to church” God says, “Not now, in a little while” we answer. “Stop living in this or that sin”. “Not now, in a little while.”

What about when we are hurting or in pain? When we are bearing a physical burden or a worry? Have you ever prayed, “Lord, deliver me from this.” But it doesn’t seem like the Lord is answering? The answer is: “in a little while”, He will deliver. To our flesh, that seems like a “no” answer, an off handed, non-committed answer. A “Does God really care?” answer. The flesh knows that that’s what it would do. We don’t want to be bothered with the problems of others, maybe God feels the same way about us when we are being tormented by guilt, anxiety, worry, sadness, or suffering of any kind. That is certainly what the Devil and the world would try to tell you. God has forgotten you. God doesn’t care. Or maybe even God isn’t real.

But the problem is our perspective. Our perspective which is tainted by our sin, by the world, by our misunderstanding of God, His Will, His Word, and so caught up in our own selfish, self-centered feelings, self-justifications, and self-pleasures, that you and I often close our hearts and minds to what is a good and joyful use of our time here on earth. This entire life that we are given here on earth is “but a little while” in the grand scope and scheme of eternity.

Eternity is the “long while” a time where there is no time. There is no end to it. We cannot even fathom it. That is even why Jesus uses the example of a woman in labor. Even if labor was many hours, what is that compared to a lifetime for that child or the lifetime for the mother. Once that little while of labor is over, once the child is born there is joy and the labor and pain fades into memory.
Our times here on earth are filled with times of pleasure, pain, sorrow, crosses and joys aplenty, but they are all such short moments, that we pass through without even fully being aware. When we are sick, we feel it greatly, and then when we are well, we are over it and can scarcely remember being ill. That is how we are, and so we guage time accordingly. How often have you and I sinfully perceived church to be like a boring meeting? Like something we have to suffer through unless it could be thrilling and pointed directly to whatever our definition of “fun” is. “Oh my Goodness, when will this service end? We went for over an hour!? This is such a “long while” Ugh!

Quite often the problem is us. If we are bored in church, it’s because God has blessed us, things are going well in our lives, but we don’t credit Him for it, and we are not thinking about how even when things seem to be going well, we still need what is here for us. We still need to confess our sin, receive His grace, and be re-centered upon Jesus Christ. Perhaps, there have been times we have just made up our minds that church is a chore, but is that God’s fault? No, this is the result of our sinful selfish flesh. Lord have mercy and turn us from our folly!

So often, the people who are really glad to be here at the Divine Service, who no longer see it as a chore or a boring waste of time, have that perspective because of suffering. Because they have suffered in the flesh and the spirit. They have seen the pain and suffering caused by sin in this world, and sin within themselves, and they understand that they deserve it, as do we all! No, sinners deserve even worse, not just death, but also eternal death. But in the midst of this suffering, the injustices, and sorrows, there will be an end to those troubles, and already there is an end to them in Christ! So now they already have joy as their Savior comes to them in this fast fleeting hour too give them relief and hope! For them an hour is not long enough. May God grant us all the same perspective!

Dear brothers and sisters: “Jesus said:
‘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.  When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Jesus was speaking of His crucifixion and resurrection to His disciples. He is speaking the same to you all, and believers of every age and location. “A little while” and we will be there. “Hang in there!” “Courage”. The world and our flesh may war against faith using our flesh. It may seem that we can bear no more, that God is not hearing our cry. Many may seem to be giving up the faith, and the world and government may persecute the Church, but have no fear in Jesus Christ! A little while and He will come again to you in His body and blood and the bread and wine. This He does so that all His people may rejoice in the forgiveness of sins. In the healing of our spirits, and the comfort of our minds and hearts. So that any trouble, sorrow, or hardship may be turned to joy, and the “long whiles” of our spiritual suffering may become as “little whiles”. While we wait for the little while of this life to be transferred to the “great and long while” of eternal life which Christ has sacrificed and labored for you and me on the cross.

Scripture is filled with this encouragement:
2 Cor. 4:16-18  So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 5:10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
Hebrews 10:37-38 “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith.”

Already, the Lord comes to you here. Be refreshed. Be encouraged as you live by faith in Jesus Christ, who for your sake labored and died on the cross. He was dead but for only “a little while”, so that when He comes to the world at the last: you, and I, and all believers, may live “a great long, while” with Him in His glory which shall have no end. And our joy shall never be taken away for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas