Last week and today, the Gospel lessons have been portions of Jesus’ Farewell Discourses. What Jesus said in these texts happened perhaps only an hour or two before He was betrayed into the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes; He celebrated His last supper with His disciples back in chapter 13, and in chapter 18 is when Judas brings the Temple guard to arrest Him. Between these two events, Jesus prepared His disciples for the time that He would no longer be with them and His church as He had in the three or so years since His baptism. While He would soon be taken from them to be crucified and die for their sins and the sins of the world and on the third day rise again—events which on a few occasions He had told them about—this time He was also preparing them for His ascension.

“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” (John 16:16) “[I]t is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7) “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:14)

This is not the Son of Man and Son of God predicting His passion again; He’s preparing His disciples and His Church for a prolonged absence, so to speak: Jesus, in a little while, will go to the Father, not to be seen again until He comes to judge the quick and the dead. Until that great and dreadful day, He will have sent—He does send and continues to send—the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to take from what is of Jesus—what is Jesus—and give it to His people, His church, as you heard last week, and to execute His three-fold conviction of the world: of sin and of righteousness and of judgment (cf. John 16:8ff). The Church has lived these last two millennia on Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit has revealed and given Him to Her in the Word and Sacraments; so He has certainly not been absent—in fact, He had promised to be with His Church always (cf. Matthew 28:20)—but He has not been visible (and remains so) with these eyes of sinful flesh, as He had been two millennia years ago.

“A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me, because I am going to the Father…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.”

It’s been four weeks since Easter Sunday. Given the frail state of the human attention span, that sense of celebration is probably worn pretty thin or gone by now for many. In this day and age of ever increasing desire for instant gratification, one may be thinking that it’s time to move on; surely you’ve already seen the countdowns to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

Compounding that is this tendency to dwell on the negative while preferring to accentuate the positive. While it is easier to recall the negative, the preference is to move past that quickly and on to the better things. The best way to do that is to keep moving forward and quickly. If something undesirable happens, no problem, you’ll be flying by it in a heartbeat. Even better if you can avoid it all together, or ignore it, or pretend like it didn’t happen. In every aspect of modern life, and I contend that its really nothing new, one likes to keep a move on.

Avoid the bad, avoid conflict, keep the peace, stick to the good…such is this way of life. And, like the fast pace one generally sticks to in life, I contend that this is nothing new.

As the Gospel lesson begins, Jesus was strolling on Solomon’s porch in the temple courtyard. It was the Feast of Dedication, a time you might know better as Hanukkah. By this time, Jesus had become pretty well-known: He was the man who taught with authority and healed all manner of diseases incurable by the medicine of that time—and perhaps some that today’s medicine can’t touch either—and cast out all kinds of demons. So, Jesus had acquired a great following and reputation throughout all Judea.

The time, location, situation, and reputation all lead up to the question the Jews ask Him: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” “Why are you keeping us in suspense? We know who you are. We’ve seen and heard of what you’ve done. Why don’t you just come out and say it, you’re the Christ, the Anointed One…the Messiah.” To understand what they were asking and demanding of Jesus, you have to understand what they were expecting of Him.

There once was a man in Galilee who was a fisherman. He did not work at this alone, for his brother and at least two friends were partnered with him. One night, he and his partners went fishing. They cast their nets and toiled through the night, but caught nothing. Dejected, they returned to shore in the morning. After a long night of fruitless work, it had to have been hard to tend to the necessary chores—harder, at least, than had they caught fish, ironically. However, they had to tend to their nets, so they cleaned them and did any mending that they needed.

Before they knew it, however, a crowd approached the shoreline. They were following a man who was talking to them. The crowd reached the docks, and this teacher looked down at the fisherman and asked to use his boat. The teacher was going to continue teaching, using the fisherman’s boat as his lectern.

The open tomb, the empty bench, the unoccupied grave cloths, the folded cloth—these are all negative evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. They don’t necessarily prove that Jesus rose from the dead. They merely prove that Jesus’ body was not in the grave.

One can assume that Jesus rose, given the negative evidence, but there needs to be more to make such an assumption. So, you can add all of the times that Jesus predicted His Passion. “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31) Jesus suffered many things. Jesus was rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes. Jesus was killed. Furthermore, He was buried in this tomb and a large stone was rolled in front of it. Jesus said He would rise again, but I guess that would only qualify as circumstantial evidence.

Early on the first day of the week, the women made their way to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away and an angel sitting in there telling them that Jesus had risen, just as He said. Were they witnesses? The angel told the women to tell the disciples, and Peter, that Jesus was going before them into Galilee. At first, the women ran away in fear. For some reason, the evidence just didn’t add up for them. Even though Jesus had said all of this would happen, and even though they found an empty tomb, and even though the angel told them that Jesus had risen, they just didn’t get it.

Eventually, the women did find Peter and John and tell them. These two ran to the tomb to see for themselves. They looked in; they go in; they saw the negative evidence. John wrote that when he went in and saw, he finally believed, but what exactly did he believe, for he also wrote, “[F]or as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead”? (John 20:9) Once again, even though Jesus had said all of this would happen, and even though they found an empty tomb, and even though the women relayed the angel’s message, as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.