SORROW AT THE CROSS TURNED INTO JOY – Charles Spurgeon
Sorrow at the Cross Turned into Joy
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in travail, has sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And you now, therefore, have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man will take from you.” — John 16:20-22.
We were singing just now a hymn in which the first verse posed a difficult question:
“‘It is finished.’ Shall we raise
Songs of sorrow, or of praise?
Mourn to see the Savior die,
Or proclaim His victory?”
The case is well argued in the second and third verses:
“If of Calvary we tell,
How can songs of triumph swell?
If of man redeemed from woe,
How shall notes of mourning flow?
Ours the guilt which pierced His side,
Ours the sin for which He died;
But the blood which flowed that day
Washed our sin and guilt away.”
The conclusion reached in the final verse seems to me to be the right one:
“Lamb of God! Your death has given
Pardon, peace and hope of heaven:
‘It is finished.’ Let us raise
Songs of thankfulness and praise!”
The chief thought connected with the Redeemer’s death should be one of grateful praise. That our Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross is a natural cause for sorrow. Those who pierced Him—of whom we are all a part—should look upon Him and mourn for their sin, as one mourns for his firstborn. Before we know that we are pardoned, our grief may well be exceedingly heavy, for until sin is put away, we stand guilty of the Savior’s blood. While our souls are only conscious of our guilty share in the Redeemer’s blood, we may well stand aghast at the sight of the accursed tree. But this changes when, by faith, we discern the glorious fruit of our Lord’s sufferings, and know that on the cross He saved us and triumphed in the deed.
The feeling of sorrow at the sight of the crucified Savior is one to be cultivated up to a certain point—especially if we take care to avoid mere sentiment and turn our grief into repentance. Then it is “godly sorrow,” which works after a godly sort. It is likely to create in us an intense horror of sin and a strong determination to purge ourselves from all fellowship with the works of darkness. Therefore, we do not condemn those who frequently preach upon the sufferings of our Lord, with the view of exciting emotions of grief in their hearers. Such emotions have a softening and sanctifying influence if attended by faith and directed by sound wisdom. However, there is a middle path in everything, and it must be followed. We believe that such preaching may sometimes be carried too far.
It is remarkable and instructive that the apostles do not appear to have spoken of the death of our Lord with any kind of regret in their sermons or epistles. The gospels mention their distress during the actual crucifixion, but after the resurrection, and especially after Pentecost, we hear no such grief. If I confine myself to the sayings and writings of the apostles, I can scarcely find a passage from which I could preach a sermon on sorrow because of the death of Jesus. On the contrary, there are many expressions that treat of the crucifixion in the spirit of exulting joy.
Remember the well-known exclamation of Paul:
“God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
He had, no doubt, as vivid an idea of the agonies of our Lord as any of us have ever attained, and yet, instead of saying, “God forbid that I should cease to weep at the sight of my crucified Master,” he declares that he glories in His cross. The death of Jesus was to him a thing to rejoice in, even to glory in. He kept no black fasts to commemorate the world’s redemption.
Note well the exalted key in which he speaks of our Lord’s death in the epistle to the Colossians:
“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”
When you turn to John’s epistles, where most pathos and tenderness would naturally abound, you hear no weeping and wailing. Instead, he speaks of the cleansing blood—the very center of the great sacrifice—in a calm, quiet, happy manner. This is far removed from bursting grief and flowing tears. He says,
“If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
This allusion to the blood of atonement suggests joy and peace rather than woe and agony. John continues,
“This is He,” says John, “that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood.”
And it is evidently to John a theme of congratulation and delight rather than a cause for sorrow that Jesus came by blood as well as by water.
So Peter, when he mentions the death of his Lord and Master, speaks of “the precious blood of Christ,” but not in words of sadness. He describes our Lord bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, but not in the language of lament. He says of those who suffered for the gospel, “Rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers in Christ’s sufferings.” Now, if he finds joy in those sufferings of ours which are in fellowship with the sufferings of Christ, much more, I gather, did he find ground for rejoicing in the sufferings of Christ Himself.
I do not believe that the “three hours’ agony,” the darkened church, the altar in mourning, the tolling of a bell, and all the other mock funereal rites of superstition derive even the least encouragement from the spirit and language of the apostles. Those practical charades in which the crucifixion is mimicked in many churches on Good Friday are more worthy of the heathen women weeping for Thammuz or of Baal’s priests crying and cutting themselves with knives, than of a Christian assembly who know that the Lord is not here, for He is risen.
Let us mourn, by all means, for Jesus died. But by no means let us make mourning the prominent thought in connection with His death if we have obtained the pardon of our sins. The language of our text allowed—and yet forbade—sorrow. It gave permission to weep, but only for a little while, and then it forbade all further weeping by the promise to turn sorrow into joy. “You shall weep and lament,” that is, His disciples, while He was dying and dead and buried, would be sorely distressed. “And you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy,” their grief would end when they saw Him risen from the dead. And so it did, for we read, “Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.”
The sight of the cross to their unbelief was sadness and sadness only. But now, to the eye of faith, it is the most gladsome sight that ever the human eye can rest upon. The cross is like the light of the morning, which ends the long and dreary darkness covering the nations. Oh, wounds of Jesus, you are like stars breaking the night of man’s despair. Oh, spear, you have opened the fountain of healing for mortal woe. Oh, crown of thorns, you are a constellation of promises. Eyes that were red with weeping now sparkle with hope at the sight of You, O bleeding Lord.
As for Your tortured body, O Emmanuel, the blood that dropped cried from the ground and proclaimed peace, pardon, and Paradise to all believers. Though laid in the grave by Your weeping friends, Your body, O divine Savior, is no longer in Joseph’s tomb. For You are risen from the dead, and we find in the songs of resurrection and ascension an abundant solace for the griefs of Your death. Like a woman to whom a son is born, we forget the travail for the joy of the glorious birth, which the church and the world now gaze upon with the utmost delight as they behold in Jesus, “the Firstborn from the dead.”
The subject for this morning, then, you will readily guess, is how far we should sorrow for the death of Jesus and how much further we are permitted to rejoice.
I. The Death of Our Lord Was and Is a Time for Sorrow.
I make a point of saying it was so because during the three days of the Savior’s burial, there was more cause for distress than there can be now that He is risen. To the disciples, the death of Jesus was the loss of His personal presence. It was a great delight for that little family to have the Lord always among them as their father and teacher, and it was a great grief to think that they should no longer hear His loving voice or catch the smile of His compassionate countenance. It brought untold comfort to them to be able to go to Him with all their questions, to fly to Him in every moment of difficulty, and to resort to Him in every hour of sorrow.
Do you wonder that their hearts were heavy at the prospect of His going away from them? They felt that they would be sheep without a shepherd, orphan children bereft of their best friend and helper. Do you wonder that they wept and lamented when the Rock of their confidence, the delight of their eyes, the hope of their souls, was taken from them?
Their sorrow showed that their hearts were loyal to their Beloved and would never receive another occupant to sit upon the throne of their affections. They wept and lamented because their bosom’s Lord was gone, and His seat was empty. They could not endure the absence of their best Beloved.
II. This Sorrow Is Changed into Joy.
“Your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” Not exchanged for joy, but actually transmuted, so that the grief becomes joy, the cause of sorrow becomes the source of rejoicing.
The Joy of Christ’s Suffering and Resurrection
The next point of joy is that Jesus Christ has now suffered all that was required of Him. That He should suffer was cause for grief, but that He has now suffered all is equal cause for joy. When a champion returns from the wars, bearing the scars of conflict by which he gained his honors, does anyone lament over his campaigns? When he left the castle, his wife hung about his neck and mourned that her lord must go to the wars to bleed and perhaps die. But when he returns with a sounding trumpet and a banner held aloft, bringing his trophies with him, honored and exalted by reason of his victories in many lands, do his dearest friends regret his toils and suffering? Do they keep fast corresponding to the days in which he was covered with the sweat and dust of battle? Do they toll a bell on the anniversary of his conflict? Do they weep over the scars which are still upon him? Do they not glory in them as honorable memorials of his valor?
They reckon that the marks the hero bears in his flesh are the noblest insignia of his glory and the best tokens of his prowess. So let us not grieve today that Jesus’ hands were pierced. Behold, they are now “as gold rings set with the beryl.” Let us not lament that His feet were nailed to the tree, for His legs are now to us “pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold.” The face more marred than that of any man is now the more lovely for its marring, and He Himself, despite His agonies, is now endowed with a beauty which even the ravished spouse in the Song could only describe as “altogether lovely.” The mighty love which enabled Him to endure His mighty passion has impressed upon Him charms altogether inconceivable in their sweetness.
Let us not mourn, then, for the agony is all over now, and He is none the worse for having endured it. There is no cross for Him now, except in the sense that the cross honors and glorifies Him. There remains for Him no cruel spear nor crown of thorns now, except that from these He derives a revenue of honor and titles always new, which exalt Him higher and yet higher in the love of His saints. Glory be unto God, Christ has not left a pang unsuffered of all His substitutionary sorrows. Of our dread ransom price, He has paid the utmost farthing. The atoning griefs have all been endured, and the cup of wrath is drunk quite dry. And because of this, we, with all the hosts above, will rejoice forever and ever.
We are glad not only that the hour of travail is over but that our Lord has survived His pains. He died a real death, but now He lives a real life. He did lie in the tomb, and it was no fiction that the breath had departed from Him. It is equally no fiction that our Redeemer lives. The Lord is risen indeed. He has survived the death struggle and the agony, and He lives unhurt. He has come out of the furnace without as much as the smell of fire upon Him. He is not injured in any faculty, whether human or divine. He is not robbed of any glory, but His name is now surrounded with brighter luster than ever. He has lost no dominion. He claims superior rights and rules over a new empire. He is a gainer by His losses. He has risen by His descent. All along the line, He is victorious at every point.
Never yet was there a victory won but what it was in some respects a loss as well as a gain. But our Lord’s triumph is unmingled glory—to Himself a gain as well as to us who share in it. Shall we not then rejoice? What, would you sit and weep by a mother as she exultingly shows her newborn child? Would you call together a company of mourners to lament and bewail when the heir is born into the household? This would be to mock the mother’s gladness. And so today, should we use dreary music and sing sorrowful hymns when the Lord is risen and is not only unhurt, unharmed, and unconquered but is far more glorified and exalted than before His death? He has gone into the glory because all His work is done. Shall not your sorrow be turned into joy in the most emphatic sense?
There is also this to add: the grand end which His death was meant to accomplish is now all attained. What was that end? I may divide it into three parts. The first is the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and that is complete. He has finished transgression. He has made an end of sin. He has taken the whole load of the sin of His elect and hurled it into the bottomless abyss. If it is searched for, it shall not be found; yes, it shall not be, says the Lord. He has put away our sin as far from us as the east is from the west, and He has risen again to prove that all for whom He died are justified in Him.
A second purpose was the salvation of His chosen, and that salvation is secured. When He died and rose again, the salvation of all who were in Him was placed beyond all hazard. He has redeemed us unto God by His blood with an effectual redemption. None shall be enslaved who were by Him redeemed. None shall be left in sin or cast into hell whose names are engraved on the palms of His hands. He has gone into glory, carrying their names upon His heart, and He stands pleading there for them. Therefore, He is able to save them to the uttermost. “I will,” He says, “that they whom You have given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory,” and that effectual plea secures their being with Him and like Him when the end shall be.
The grand objective, however, of His death was the glory of God, and truly God is glorified in the death of His Son beyond anything that was known before or since. Here, the very heart of God is laid open to the inspection of all believing eyes—His justice and His love, His stern severity which will not pass by sin without atonement, and His boundless love that gives His best self, His darling from His bosom, that He may bleed and die in our place—“Here depths of wisdom shine, which angels cannot trace. The highest rank of cherubim still lost in wonder gaze.”
Yes, O Christ of God, “it is finished.” You have done all You intended to do; the whole of Your design is achieved. Not one purpose has failed, nor even one part of it fallen through, and therefore shall we not rejoice? The child is born, shall we not be glad? The travail would have been a subject for great grief had the mother died or had the child perished in the birth. But now that all is over, and all is well, why should we remember any more the anguish? Jesus lives, and His great salvation makes glad the sons of men. Why should we tune the mournful string and mourn like doves? No! Ring out the clarion, for the battle is fought and the victory is won forever. Victory! VICTORY! VICTORY! His own right hand and His holy arm have gotten Him the victory!
Though the champion died in the conflict, yet in His death He slew death and destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Our glorious Champion has risen from His fall, for He could not be held by the bands of death. He has smitten His enemies, but as for Himself, He has come up from the grave; He has risen as from the heart of the sea. Let us exult like Israel at the Red Sea when Pharaoh was overthrown! With timbrel and dance let the daughters of Israel go forth to sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously and utterly destroyed all our adversaries.
We have not yet completed this work of changing sorrow into joy until we notice that now the greatest possible blessings accrue to us because He was made a curse for us. Through His death come pardon, reconciliation, access, acceptance, His blood “speaks better things than that of Abel,” and invokes all heaven’s blessings upon our heads. But Jesus is not dead. He is risen, and that resurrection brings justification and the safeguard of His perpetual plea in heaven. It brings us His representative presence in glory, and the making of all things ready for us in the many mansions. It brings us a share in that “all power which is given unto Him in heaven and in earth,” in the strength of which He bids us go and teach all nations, baptizing them into His sacred name.
Beloved, Pentecost comes to us because Jesus went away from us. The gifts of the Holy Spirit—illuminating, comforting, quickening—the power to proclaim the word, and the might which attends that word, all have come to us because He is no longer with us, but through the regions of the dead, He has passed to reach His crown. And now today we have this great joy again, that because He died, there is a kingdom set up in the world, a kingdom which can never be moved, a kingdom whose power lies in weakness, and yet it is irresistible, a kingdom whose glory lies in suffering, and yet it cannot be crushed—a kingdom of love, a kingdom of unselfishness, a kingdom of kindness, truth, purity, holiness, and happiness. Jesus wears the imperial purple of a kingdom in which God loves men and men love God.
Having proved Himself the prince of self-sacrificing love, He is justly exalted to the throne amid the acclamations of all His saints. His kingdom, shapeless as it looks to carnal eyes, like a stone cut out of a mountain without hands, will, nevertheless, break all the kingdoms of this world to splinters in due time and fill the whole earth. His kingdom will grow and extend, till from a handful of corn upon the top of the mountains, its fruit shall so increase that it shall shake like Lebanon, a kingdom which shall comprehend all ranks and conditions of men—men of all colors, of all lands and nations—encircling all even as the ocean surrounds many lands.
The unsuffering kingdom of the suffering shepherd, inaugurated by His death, established by His resurrection, extended by the Pentecostal descent of the Holy Spirit, and secured by the eternal covenant, is hastening on. Every winged hour brings it nearer to its perfect manifestation. Yes, the kingdom comes, the kingdom whose foundation was laid in the blood of its King at Calvary. Happy are they who are helping it on, for when the Lord shall be revealed, they also shall be manifested with Him. The Chief among 10,000 and the 10,000 who were with Him shall stand side by side in the day of victory, even as they stood side by side in the hour of strife.
Then, indeed, our sorrow shall be turned into joy. There we must leave the subject, only noticing this one fact—that joy is right, hearty joy. “Your hearts shall rejoice,” said the Savior. Ours is no superficial mirth, but heart-deep bliss. That joy is also abiding joy. “Your joy no man takes from you.” No, nor the devil, either. Nor time nor eternity can rob us of it. At the foot of the cross there wells up a flashing, sparkling fountain of joy, which can never be dried up but must flow on forever. In summer and in winter, it shall be, and none shall be able to keep us back from the living flood, but we shall drink to the full forever and ever.
III. The General Principle Involved
Now, my last point is the general principle involved in this particular instance. The general principle is this: that in connection with Christ, you must expect to have sorrow. “You shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice.” But whatever sorrow you feel in connection with Jesus, there is this consolation—the pangs are all birth-pangs. They are all the necessary preliminaries of an ever-increasing, abounding joy.
Brethren, since you have come to know Christ, you have felt a sharper grief on account of sin. Let it continue with you, for it is working holiness in you, and holiness is happiness. You have felt of late a keener sensibility on account of the sins of those around you. Do not wish to be deprived of it, it will be the means of your loving them more, praying more for them, and seeking more their good. You will be better qualified to do them real service and lead them to your Lord.
Perhaps you have had to bear a little persecution, hard words, and the cold shoulder. Do not fret, for all this is necessary to make you have fellowship with Christ’s sufferings, that you may know more of Him and become more like Him. You sometimes see the cause of Christ as though dead, and you are grieved about it, as well you might be. The enemy triumphs, false doctrine is advanced, Jesus seems to be crucified afresh, or hidden away in the grave, forgotten, as a dead man out of mind.
It is well that you should feel this, but in that very feeling, there should be the full persuasion that the truth of Christ cannot long be buried, but waits to rise again with power. Never did the gospel lie in the grave more than its three days. Never did a lion roar upon it but that it turned and tore the enemy, and found honey in its carcass in later days. Whenever truth seems to be repulsed, she does but draw back to take a more wondrous leap forward. As when the tide ebbs out very far, we expect it to return again in the fullness of its strength, so is it with the church. If we see a small fall in the tide, we know that it will not rise very far, but when we see the stream sinking right away, and leaving the riverbed almost dry, we expect to see it roll in at flood tide till the banks overflow.
Always look for the triumph of Christianity when others tell you it is defeated. Expect to find, in the very quarter where it is covered with the most disgrace and shame, that there it will win its most glorious laurels. The truth’s superlative victories follow upon its worst defeats. Have faith in God. You tell me you have that. “Then,” says your Master, “you believe in God, believe also in Me.” Believe in Christ, trust in Him, rest in Him, fight for Him, labor for Him, suffer for Him, for He must conquer.
Even now does He sit as King upon the hill of Zion, and soon the heathen shall become His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth shall be His possession. Your sorrow shall be turned into joy in all these cases. Whenever your sorrow is the result of your belonging to Christ, always congratulate yourself upon it, since as the spring begets the summer, so does sorrow in connection with Christ bring forth joy to us in the Lord.
By-and-by will come your last sorrow, unless the Lord should suddenly appear, and you will die. But be content to die. Look forward to it without the slightest alarm. Death is the gate of endless joy, and shall we dread to enter there? No, Jesus being with you, meet death joyfully, for to die is to burst the bonds of this death which everywhere surrounds us, and to enter into the true life of liberty and bliss. Even to the end, sorrow shall be to you the birth-pang of your joy. Carry that thought with you and be always glad.
With one remark I finish. I will not dwell upon it, but leave it to abide in the memories of those whom it concerns. I present it to the minds of all those who are not believers in Christ. Did you notice that the Lord said, “You shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy”? Now, what is implied there to complete the sentence? Why, that the world’s joy shall be turned into sorrow. Even so shall it be.
There is not a pleasure which the ungodly man enjoys when he is indulging in sin but what will curdle into grief and be his sorrow forever. Depend upon it that the wine of transgression will sour into the gripping vinegar of remorse, which shall dissolve the rebel’s soul. The sparks which now delight you shall kindle the flames of your eternal misery. Every sin, though sweet when it is like a green fig, is bitterness itself when it comes to its ripeness.
Woe unto you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you that now rejoice in sin, for you shall gnash your teeth, and weep and wail because of that very Christ whom you now reject. All things will soon be turned upside down. Blessed are you that mourn now, for you shall be comforted, but woe unto you that are full this day, for you shall hunger. The sun will soon be set for you that rejoice in sin. Sadness like a thick cloud is now descending to surround you eternally in its horrible gloom. Out of that cloud shall leap the flashes of eternal justice, and from it shall peal the thunderclaps of righteous condemnation.
“Upon the wicked, He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.” The Lord deliver you from such a doom by leading you now to yield to Jesus and believe in His name. May He grant this prayer for Jesus’ sake. Amen.