How Long is, "A Little While?" Doesn't Really Matter...
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Enough already. It’s time to get going. I’ve had enough. This ain’t working for me. I don’t know how much more I can handle. In immortal words found in multiple places in scripture, “How long, O Lord?”
No matter the circumstance, we’re in good company with the saints that have gone before us on the journey of life when we cry out, “How long, O Lord?”
Jesus had a bad habit of not using discrete descriptions of time when he would speak of things to come, much to the frustration not only of his contemporaries but also those who have followed him up to and including the present day. I think Jesus did so not because he wanted to play games with us, and not because he wanted to frustrate us. Well, before I say too much more, let’s eavesdrop on a conversation Jesus had with some of his followers, as recorded in John’s gospel:
From John sixteen, verses nineteen through twenty-two:
Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’?
Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.
When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.
So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
While Jesus was, indeed, speaking of the events surrounding Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and there is a lot more here to unpack with regards to others things one gleans from listening to these words, I want to draw our attention instead to what Jesus DOES NOT say in the midst of this discourse.
“A little while.”
Why didn’t Jesus just lay out for us the specific timetable for all this? Why the need to play games and couch it in this manner? After all, would it have hurt anything for him to just come right out with the complete plan?
Well, in a word, yes. It would have hurt. It would have hurt a lot. It would have cut so deep that it would have so completely changed the course of history and the course of the faithful at the time, not to mention the course of the faithful here and now - in other words, you and me.
“How,” might you ask?
Simple. We are not called to a life where we know every next step. We are not called to a life where we know all the details of what is to come or how things are to work out in the long run.
Instead, dear friends, we are called to life a life of faith - a life of faith that depends not on our knowing where we are going or in what time frame things will occur. A life of faith that is based on trust in God’s timing - which while maddening at times, is definitely perfect.