Sermon Text

"Ticket Stubs Turned to Joy"

#92-41
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on June 8, 2025
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

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Text: John 16:20

When we went to the hospital that night, we brought along all the normal stuff you bring when you're having your first kid (or at least it all seemed normal to us at the time), suitcase, toothbrush, birth plan, giant body pillow, and some half-used movie ticket stubs. "Half used"- because we had left before it was over. In fact, it was and still is the only movie I've ever paid for, but didn't stay for to the end. I thought we'd saved at least one of those tickets. I looked through the old baby books in the basement but couldn't find it. I suppose we have moved nine times since then. It must have gotten lost in the shuffle.

It would have been nice if we had saved it-something symbolic to remember the night by. For my wife, Amy, it'd be symbolic of the new reality that was waiting for us, after nine months of waiting. Long expected, the hour had finally come, and everything changed for us. It would have meant the same for me, too, but also symbolic in another way: because to this day, I have not seen the end of that movie. I think I paid at least six bucks a piece for those tickets, 20 plus years ago, and if I had the stub, I could prove it.

But why am I complaining? I couldn't even remember the name of the movie until I looked it up on the internet. I did remember that it was the latest installment of the James Bond franchise. We had almost made it to the end. At that point, the movie's director completely has me under his spell. I'm sitting there in the darkness, gripped by the hypnotic soundtrack. It was during one of those classic James Bond cat-and mouse car chase scenes. I'm leaning forward, white-knuckled. I am in the car with Bond; I'm in the Aston Martin. I am Bond.

And Amy, my wife, she puts her hand on my shoulder. She says, "It's happening." I think, "You bet it's happening!" It's all happening-torpedoes, the retracting spikes in the tires, the guns hidden under the grill, the ejector seat-this is it!

No, she says, contractions-contractions are happening! It takes a moment for her words to register in my brain. Still-entranced, I half-look at her and see that she is serious. The hour had come. And we never saw the end of it.

Now I'd be lying if I told you I didn't feel a tiny tinge of sadness when we left. I know it's silly, what with the fact of our first child being born and all, a new human being entering the world, and we were all being delivered into this greater reality that would change our lives forever.

Yes, it's silly that I would feel sad, and that part of me wanted to stay there in the dark cocoon of my fantasy, sated in butter-soaked, over-salted popcorn, caught up in a movie I wouldn't even remember the name of 20 years later. I asked my wife about this, and she couldn't remember what it was called, either. We didn't know the name. We didn't know who played Bond. We didn't know how it ended. But we did have a son. We do have a son and joy that a half-used ticket stub cannot take away.

There's an ancient observation about childbirth that captures this. It says, "A woman, when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour has come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a human being is born into the world."

I've never experienced the truth of this firsthand. I have witnessed it four times, but I do not know the first thing about labor pains, personally. I can, however, wax eloquent about the man-pains of not getting to finish your movie, and that they are foolish compared to the joy of becoming a father.

The saying about childbirth comes from the Bible, words spoken by Jesus of Nazareth, recorded in the Gospel of John. Jesus was speaking to His disciples, to His closest followers. He was telling them what was about to happen to Him. That He was going to be lifted up so that He could draw all people to Himself. That He was going to be rejected by His people, crucified, and killed, also that He would rise from the dead, and He would see them again after it all happened.

This was not the end they were hoping for. See, on some level, even Jesus' own followers had come under the spell of the old nationalist fantasy, the wish-dream that their nation could really be great again, if someone torpedoed the corrupt government and ejected all the evil people from their seats of power. That's what the Jewish Messiah, the Christ, was supposed to do, according to some. And it seems that at least some of Jesus' followers had come under the hypnotic trance of this spell.

Jesus, however, had come for a different ending, a better one-not just surface change, not just a couple of hours of escape in a darkened theater. No, Jesus came to bring about a new beginning, the birth of a new world. He came to deliver them and us into a completely new reality with God, that would change our lives forever.

So, the night before it happened, Jesus gave His disciples this up-ending word-picture: He said His mission would be something like a birth. Like a birth. And like a birth there would be pain, trial, pressure, and on the other side of it, joy.

Jesus knows that He's about to be betrayed, arrested, tortured, humiliated, hung on a cross, and raised from the dead on the third day after. Jesus knows that after His resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven, He knows that His disciples as they carry His message forward into the world and serve as His witnesses in the generations to come, He knows that they also will face persecution, pain, trial, pressure until the day He returns, and His kingdom fully comes. So, in John 16, He said to them, and He says to us:

"I'm telling you the truth, you all will weep and mourn, while the world will rejoice. You will have sorrow, but your sorrow will turn into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow, because her hour has come. But as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of joy that a person has been born into the world.

So also, now you all have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and your joy-no one will be able to take it from you. In that day, you will no longer ask me anything. I am telling you the truth - whatever you ask the Father in My Name He will give to you. Until now, you have not asked for anything in My Name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be full" (John 16:20-24).

This weekend, followers of Jesus around the world are celebrating the festival of Pentecost. Pentecost is the celebration of the birth of the church, the re-birth of God's people through the life-giving gift of God's Spirit as foretold in the Bible. It was Jesus' mission to bring about this new birth, by undergoing it in Himself, first, by dying and being raised from the dead. After it was finished, after He'd become the firstborn from the dead, after He'd gone back to God, His Father in heaven, He promised to send the Spirit of God to His followers so that they might be reborn-that you and I might be reborn like Jesus, born again by faith in Him.

Sometimes, when I hear this message about God and Jesus and the Spirit, part of me wants to put it off-probably the same part of me that would have put off the birth of my son so I could finish my movie. My silly man-pain sorrows were just that-silly. They are not the same as labor pains. They are not the same as the pains and persecutions and trials and tribulations that we all face in this mortal life, stuck in a world cut off from God, and caught under the spell of our private fantasies.

But also, none of these sorrows can hold a candle to the light of the glory of God's kingdom, the new reality to come when Jesus returns to raise the dead and deliver all things into a new beginning. In that light, it'll all seem as small as a half-used ticket stub.

Jesus said He would send His Spirit to deliver the truth of this message to the world. He said the Holy Spirit would convict the world. The Spirit will expose the world to the truth-the truth about sin and justice and judgment. Sin, because the world has not trusted Jesus, but looked for fulfillment in its own fantasies. Justice, because Jesus has returned to the Father, to deliver us into a new life with Him. Judgment, because the former "director" of this world-the devil-has been cast out. The darkness has been dispelled; the spell broken; the lie exposed. You and I, we were made, not to stay in the darkness of the little theater of life that we've created for ourselves without God. Sometimes we want to stay there. Sometimes I want to stay. I want to make believe that it's all about me, that I'm the hero of the story. But the work of the Spirit is to show us the truth about this world-that it's not my fantasy, it's not your fantasy. It's God's beloved creation. It's not a 120-minute hit that 20 years from now will have really bad CGI. And it is no loss to get up and leave in the middle of this darkness. Because there's greater reality coming; because it's God's world, the world He created and loves, the world for which He sent His Son and His Spirit so that all could be reborn, you and me included.

So, what now? What do you do? First, you turn off the fantasy. When I was in high school, usually after school I would go down to our basement and watch TV before dinner. Rather than doing the right thing, rather than going into the kitchen and asking my mom, "Hey, how can I help?" I went down into my dark lair to watch a show. And to make it worse, when my mom would call down and say, "Dinner's ready," I'd call back and say, "Lemme finish my show, first, Mom!" This was before on-demand streaming services, so if you left in the middle, you'd miss the ending. But here's what I wish I could say to my 16-year-old self: I'd say, "It's just a show! Turn it off. Get up and honor the woman who delivered you into this world, you fool!"

Sometimes the first step is-in the power of God's Spirit-just to turn it off, whatever it is. Turn it off, the show, the game, the phone. Turn off skipping church to sleep in; turn off excuse-making; turn off self-pitying. Get up and honor the One who created you and delivered you by His blood. Go and serve in the power of His Spirit. Get out of the darkness. Be delivered into the light. The man-pains of a missed show fade quicker than labor pains. And even those can't compare to the joy of new life. So first, turn it off-turn off the old way of life, however it still tempts you. And then, tune in-tune in to the new reality.

While my brother and I lived still lived under our parents' roof, at various times they enforced a "No TV" rule. Sometimes it was invoked to help us focus on our homework. Other times it was because we threw too much of a fit about not being able to finish our show before dinner. And once the no-TV rule took effect, Mom and Dad were usually strict about it. Which meant that even after you'd done your homework and chores and helped mom in the kitchen, you still had a lot of time on your hands.

And so, to keep us from being idle, it was suggested that we try reading a book. So, I tried it. And really got into it. It was mostly Stephen King thrillers at the time. And I was surprised that the reality presented to me in a well-crafted book was even more engrossing than a TV screen.

So also, by the leading of God's Spirit, as we turn from the darkness of a self-centered life into the self-giving light of Jesus, we're not merely leaving something behind. If all you have is the memory of a half-used ticket stub, your sense of loss will probably be unbearable. But if you tune in to the new reality, a greater joy will take hold of you.

Jesus promised His joy would take hold of us through prayer. Prayer is talking to God in Jesus' Name. Prayer is asking God, thanking God, confessing to God, complaining to God, praising God, all in response to His command and promise. Prayer is another gift of God's Spirit. Praying is what you do when you've been delivered into God's reality, when you've left the darkness. Prayer is how you tune in to that new reality. Prayer is the pathway to joy.

Today, God's Spirit has tapped you on the shoulder. He's leading you out of the darkness. He's delivering you to tune in to God's reality through prayer. And He's calling you back into the theater of this mortal life. What happens in theaters is not necessarily bad. The tasks, the joys, the sorrows of this mortal life are neither silly nor inconsequential. They only become so when we fall under the spell of the darkness, when we believe this is all there is, when we put off the Spirit's prompting through the Word.

And still, God bears with us. He keeps calling us out of the darkness and back into a world still in the throes of a new birth. God sends us back into life's theater, to witness to those who are still in the dark.

Now, I'm not saying that it's our job as Christ-followers to go into movie theaters at random and start shouting, "The end is near! Jesus is coming!" It is God's work, the work of the Holy Spirit, to bring people out of the darkness to faith in Jesus. The Spirit uses our words and witness. But our enthusiasm, our sense of urgency, whether it's forced or authentic, will not make the Spirit work in any way other than when and where God pleases. Sometimes the Spirit conceives faith in someone abruptly, like flipping the light on in a darkened theater. Sometimes He works imperceptibly, subtly, like a sunrise. It's not our job to say when or how. Instead, we are called to be good company along the way.

It's like how my wife, Amy, and I had company with us during that movie we never saw the end of. Her mom and dad, who knew a thing or two about childbirth, had flown out to be with us for our first. We were already two weeks past Amy's due date. Her parents kept saying they all come on their own timeline, but we wanted to get things moving. So, Mom and Dad accompanied us on walks in the park and around the neighborhood. We went bowling, and finally to a movie.

After we had left the theater, on the way to the hospital, we stopped at our house, and they helped us gather all our stuff-the overnight bag, the body pillow, a cooler, snacks, a boom box to play CDs in the hospital room, and other such sundry items that people brought with them to have babies at the turn of the last century. That's how they accompanied us as we waited. They bore with us in everything we needed-and everything we thought we needed.

It goes like that with the Spirit of Jesus. He leads us to accompany others, bearing with them on the way, witnessing to the truth of God's love with our words and deeds. We don't dictate when or how it happens. But we're ready to respond when the Spirit taps someone on the shoulder. We take our half-used ticket stubs and head out, rejoicing. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.