In the last parable Jesus uses to teach about the Father, he is responding to the disciples' emotions. He likens their misery to the pain and fear of a woman ‘in labor’. As her contractions grow in intensity the pain, and even a fear of death and loss temporarily overwhelm everything else. After a healthy child is born, the new mother probably doesn't forget the pains, but she can no longer dwell on these, due to the joy she shares with the people around her over the baby. Even so, Jesus' death will bring the disciples a deep sense of loss. But their seemingly overwhelming pain will last only for ‘a short while’, and will be overwhelmed by a lasting joy that will soon fill and surround them.

Why the birth analogy? What is being born? And why will the Day of new birth bring such joy? The new birth Jesus has in mind is not about baptism for the forgiveness of sins, nor about confession of faith in him as Messiah, nor about making a commitment to follow him. The disciples already have done all of these things. The Day of ‘new birth’ will begin with the disciples seeing Jesus in a resurrected body. 'For a short while again' they will touch him, eat with him, talk with him, and see him come and go through locked doors. Over a forty-day period they will grow in confidence that Death has been defeated and that there is indeed bodily (eternal) life after death. They will be filled with a joy that no one can take away from them (Med.#49). Yet this will not be the ‘full’ joy, for there will still be something about Jesus' life, death and resurrection that they cannot yet take on board.

The full joy will require both a greater revelation and a response to it on their part. The greater revelation will come through the Spirit. When he comes, he will guide them into ‘the complete truth’ [Gr. aleetheia]—into the previously ‘secret’ things that do not need to be kept secret anymore[ii], because the New Time has begun (Med.#3). Through the Spirit, the disciples will begin to experience the intimate, yet ‘adult’ relationship with their ‘Abba’ (Med.#4) that God planned for all humanity before the creation, but kept hidden through all previous generations (Med.#8). In the New Day the disciples will recognize that what they witnessed in Jesus' life is not only the source of their new life with the Father, but the model for it as well. Yes, Jesus' sonship relationship with the Father is unique in one way. There can be only one divine/human Eldest Brother. But his disciples will also receive the Spirit—the ‘first fruits’ of being ‘placed as sons’. And by seeing and touching Jesus' resurrection body, they will gain a glimpse of the final stage of their own ‘placement as sons’: ‘the redemption of their bodies’ (Med.#5 & #94). No wonder they will be filled with unshakable hope and joy.

Yet the disciples will need to activate this relationship: by asking ‘the Father’ directly for ‘whatever’ they desire, in Jesus' name, so that they can be ‘fruitful’ as his adult daughters and sons. Only when they enter into this asking-and-receiving relationship with the Father—while continuing to obey Jesus' commands—will their joy be full. For then they will finally understand that Jesus calls them friends (Med.#22) because the Father is just as ‘deeply fond’ [Gr. philei] of them as friends, as he is of Jesus.[iii]

Yet as the disciples listen to Jesus on the night he was betrayed, all this is still in the future. They are still in pain. Though they've walked with Jesus for three years, believed in him and been baptized, they still do not understand these things. They say that they finally understand Jesus' teaching. But what they understand is still limited to Jesus' uniqueness and his relationship to ‘God’. Such faith is, of course, good. But it is not the goal of our faith. It is only the first step towards the goal. If our Christian faith is limited to boasting about ‘our’ Jesus as superior to all other religious leaders, because he is God's Son, then we have gotten ‘stuck’ on the road to ‘full joy’—to a maturing relationship with the Father ourselves, through Jesus, and by the Spirit.

Thus, Jesus' concluding question (‘do you believe now?’) is a challenge to us today. Is your life with Jesus characterized by the joy of this revelation? Or are you struggling, like they were, with a mixture of expectant hopes and pain—a struggle in which the pain threatens to overwhelm the hope because your expectations for a better life with Jesus have remained largely unfulfilled? When Jesus went away ‘for a short while’ to the cross, he did not do so only to ‘fix’ the problems of sin and evil in our lives. He did so also to break the power of our limited (worldly and cultural) perspectives. I find it very ironic that many Christian theologians think of ‘Father’ as a metaphor for God. For in this text it is the disciple's transition from pain to joy that Jesus describes using a ‘metaphor’ (childbirth). By contrast he speaks of the coming of the Spirit as a time when he will ‘outspokenly’ make the Father known. Knowing God as ‘Father’, according to Jesus, is no metaphor.

Full joy in this relationship comes through asking and receiving. And it begins by asking the Father to receive the Holy Spirit (Lk.11:13; Med.#14). Is this message plain to you yet? Or is there some theology or something in your earthly experience of fatherhood that is still getting in the way?