As a Mother Rejoices
Jubilate Sunday| John 16:16-23| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| May 11, 2025
“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.” Jesus tells this little parable to teach us how we must endure a little while of sorrow before we experience the joys of paradise. It’s a helpful illustration. Everyone knows that childbirth is painful. Yet, much of our generation has forgotten the joys of being a mother. While it is inappropriate to speculate why a married couple does not have children, because you do not know their situation, reports across the general population reveal a disturbing trend. The birthrate of nearly every developed nation has dropped below replacement rate. This means that the general attitude of the current generation is to avoid the little while of suffering that brings the joy of being a mother. There are many explanations for this. There is materialism, where people would rather have money and stuff than expensive children, who limit their freedom. But another reason is that instead of teaching young ladies chastity and to wait until they are married for the marital embrace, our generation has taught girls to dread having babies. I remember this well as a student. The secular world recognized that teen pregnancy was a problem, yet they thought it was too religious to teach chastity, so instead they taught girls how hard it is to have a child. They tried to scare them away from getting pregnant. Mix that with the alluring glitter of materialism and careerism, and the result is a generation that largely looks down on motherhood and the blessing of children.
So, in order for Jesus’ lesson concerning a woman giving birth to have its proper force, we need to hear from Scripture what an immense blessing it is to be a mother, so much so, that Jesus says the pain of childbirth is not worth bringing into mind. My dear sisters in Christ, think of your mothers in the faith from holy Scripture, Eve, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth, and of course the Virgin Mary. God blessed and comforted all these women with children. And this is not some antiquated ideal that isn’t compatible with the twenty-first century woman. This is an abiding truth. Psalm 128 states, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” And in Malachi 2, when the prophet asks what God was seeking from the covenant of marriage, he answers, “Godly offspring.” (Malachi 2:15)
Yes, motherhood requires great sacrifice beyond the pains of giving birth, for which reason we should always honor mothers and praise motherhood. Yet, mothers should also remember the words of our Lord, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35) And mothers give the best things. Not only do they give life itself and the things most needed for physical life to their children (in blood, sweat, milk, and tears), but with their husbands they are given the task to give their children the means of grace, that is, the very means of salvation. You cannot baptize your car. You cannot teach your retirement account the Gospel. You can’t take your career with you to heaven. But you can baptize your children, teach them the Gospel, and rejoice in heaven with them forever. Your children are your only possession you can take with you to heaven.
The Bible speaks consistently of children and motherhood being a blessing, which brings much joy. So much so, that Jesus uses the joy of having a child after labor to illustrate His joy of having us after He labored on the cross, and the joy a Christian has in entering paradise after walking through the valley of the shadow of death. So, Christian parents, do not teach your daughters to be afraid of having children. Rather, teach them (and your sons) to be chaste, as the Bible teaches. Teach them to guard their bodies until they are married, for St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6, “Flee from fornication. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (vss. 18-20) But teach them that being a mother is a wonderful joy blessed by God! God calls mothers blessed, so we should not behave as if it is a curse. Rather, we should teach our daughters how to find good Christian husbands and to look forward to the blessing of motherhood.
When Jesus says that a woman no longer remembers her anguish for joy that a human being has been born, He doesn’t mean that she can’t remember the pain. He means that she does not call it to mind. It is as St. Paul says in Romans 8, “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” And when we understand this, we see how Jesus is teaching us to endure our own “little while.”
For a little while, Jesus labored for your salvation. He felt the guilt of your sins more purely and completely than any human soul could, as He sweat drops of blood in the garden, drinking to the dregs the cup of God’s wrath for all sin. Not only did He endure in His body the scourging and beating, the six hours nailed to the cross, but His very soul made an offering for guilt as He endured an eternity of God’s wrath against all sin in that little while of His passion. And yet, so great is Christ’s love for us, that He says it is like a mother who forgets the pain for the joy of her child. So, Jesus willingly went to the cross and now His joy is fulfilled, because He has won for us eternal salvation. Jesus endured His little while for us as a mother endures her little while for her child. It is as Hebrews 12:2 states, “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.”
Jesus taught this lesson to His disciples on the Thursday night before He was crucified, just several minutes before Judas came with a band of soldiers to arrest Him. Yet, so much did He love His disciples, that He did not focus solely on His own little while of suffering, but He thought of His disciples, and the sorrow and anguish they would endure when He was crucified and laid dead in a tomb. So, to comfort them and strengthen their faith, He told them that their sorrow was for just a little while, but that soon their joy would be so complete, that nothing could take it away from them. And so, it was. The disciples had sorrow and anguish for three days until Christ returned alive from the dead. But then their joy was so complete, that neither imprisonment or stoning or crucifixion or any other form of persecution or execution could take their joy from them. Rather, they joyfully proclaimed the Gospel to all nations, dying for Christ’s sake and inheriting everlasting life.
Yet, St. John recorded these words of Jesus for our sake, so that we could find comfort in Jesus’ Words. You too must endure a little while before your joy is complete. But when your little while is over, your sorrow will not be worth remembering. Jesus says in Matthew 16, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (vss 24-26) And so, it is appointed for every Christian to bear a cross for a little while before he enjoys paradise with Christ.
Jesus says that His disciples will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. They will be sorrowful, but their sorrow will turn into joy. This is much like what Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4) This means that Christians do not rejoice in that which the sinful world rejoices in. We do not find our joy in the things of the material world, money, successful careers, property, sensual pleasures, and other such things. Yes, we enjoy honest work, good food and company, and our vocations as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. We give thanks to God for these things, even as we pray for our daily bread. But we do not make these things our gods. Our hope is not in this world which perishes. We have set our hope beyond this little while. But the world hates this. The world wants you to find your joy in it, to worship the things of this world, to do whatever you must do to avoid the cross God has given you to bear. But Jesus did not refuse His cross for the sake of our salvation. So, neither should we refuse our cross.
Your cross is when you must suffer while keeping your faith in Christ. Sometimes that suffering is persecution for confessing Christ. This may be losing a job or being discriminated against for your Christian beliefs and convictions. However, our brothers and sisters in Christ in other lands as well as other centuries have shed their blood and even died to bear this cross. Sometimes the cross is a difficult marriage, but you made a vow before God to be faithful not just for better, but for worse as well. Sometimes the cross is wayward children, a barren womb, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and persistent temptation from Satan. To bear the cross means to take all these things with patience, trusting in the Lord and living according to His Word, not rejecting Him in order to ease the cross, but rather finding your rest in Christ Jesus, who makes your yoke easy and your burden light.
Crosses are not equal. You don’t get to choose what your cross is. But God uses crosses to strengthen your faith and draw you closer to Him, so that you crucify your flesh with its passions and desires, so that it does not drag you to impenitent sin and hell, and so you do not trust in the things of this world, but set your hope on Christ. And crosses are always for just a little while. Now, it depends on your perspective. Sixty years may seem like an eternity to bear a cross, but it isn’t. Eternity is what comes after death. And through Jesus’ little while of suffering, He has won for us an eternity of happiness, without sin, sorrow, anxiety, anguish, or any more crosses.
And so, as a mother rejoices in her children, saying that the pain of labor was worth it, and as Christ did not refuse the cup of God’s wrath, but went willingly to the cross for us, so that He could enjoy our salvation for all eternity, so we learn from Jesus’ lesson and example not to despise our own cross, which we must bear for a little while. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy will come in the morning. Our labor will end. Our anguish will be forgotten. The glory Christ has won for us by taking away our sins will cause us to put our sorrow out of our mind, for joy that we have obtained His salvation. Amen.