16.4 - A Little While
Based on John 16:16-22
The words slipped out of Jesus’ mouth so simply that night:
“A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” (16:16)
It’s the kind of sentence that doesn’t land in the ears first—it lands in the deep, wordless part of a person. You can almost hear the disciples’ inward protest: “No… this cannot be.”
The path was narrowing, the city lights fading behind them, and suddenly they were wrapped in a riddle they didn’t want.
None of them understood it.
Not really.
They did what people always do when their world tilts—they whispered to each other, chasing explanations that kept slipping through their fingers (16:17–18).
It feels almost like a Zen kōan—something angled and unsettling, not meant to answer a question but to crack open the consciousness of the one who is asking.
If you think about it carefully, what Jesus said that night didn’t solve anything.
It stirred everything.
And maybe, just maybe, that was the point.
Inside the Hollow Space
John records this scene with almost no commentary, which is how you know the emotion beneath it was enormous. He doesn’t describe their faces or how they tried to swallow their fear. He just lets the silence do the work.
And if you’ve ever stood at the edge of losing someone you love, you recognize the landscape instantly.
First comes absence—an unwelcome guest who slams the window shut.
Then grief rushes in, splintering into sadness, confusion, and that wandering anger with nowhere to go.
And then—much later, and never quickly—the edges soften.
Their voice begins surfacing in the ordinary moments.
And memory begins to seep in, warming the cold floor of the soul.
Presence returns—not as it was, but as something deeper and strangely steadier.
When Jesus talked about sorrow turning to joy (16:20–22), He wasn’t offering a spiritual trick or a religious slogan. He was naming the way a human heart actually heals. He was giving words to the pattern every grieving person eventually learns. He was preparing His friends for the emotional storm on the horizon.
To my grandchildren, and their children
If you ever find yourself in a season where things feel hollow or unraveling, don’t rush to fix it. Sit with it gently. Sometimes the soul grows in the places we wish it wouldn’t. And in time—even if you don’t see it happening—something warm begins to rise from the cold edges. I want you to trust that.
The Roads They Could Have Chosen
What Jesus offers here becomes even more striking when you consider what the disciples could have done with their grief.
They could have collapsed into self-pity, replaying the same “Why, God? Why us?” for the rest of their lives.
They could have disappeared into depression, unable to imagine anything beyond the silence He left behind.
They could have slipped into denial, burying their grief in work or noise or busyness.
They could have treated their years with Jesus as a beautiful season that ended—something to reminisce over like a cherished trip before returning to their old routines and fishing nets.
They could have turned violent, fueled by anger and the need to settle scores. A few of them came close.
All of these paths were available.
All were deeply human.
All would have led to a kind of death.
But Jesus offers something different—something almost impossibly gentle:
Walk through the grief—through this “valley of the shadow of death.”
Let it open you.
Trust that presence can return in a new way.
He is not preventing their sorrow.
He is guiding it.
He is naming a path that could keep them from unraveling.
The Seeing That Changes
And then there’s the small detail we almost miss. Jesus doesn’t say, “You will see Me again.”
He says:
“I will see you again.” (16:22)
Five words—and the whole sentence shifts.
Sight is no longer about their vision at all.
It becomes about His attention, His presence, His initiative.
The disciples couldn’t understand it yet, but a deep rewiring had already begun. Their relationship was moving from seeing Jesus beside them to experiencing Jesus within them.
Grief would open the door.
Memory would walk through it.
The Spirit would take up residence and begin stitching presence into the heart.
Another quiet aside for my grandchildren
If you ever wonder how someone you love can still matter after they’re gone, pay attention to what rises inside you at unexpected moments. A phrase. A steadiness. A small courage. A sudden clarity. Love rarely disappears; it simply changes its address.
Koans, Cracks, and the Slow Simmer
When the disciples asked, “What does He mean by ‘a little while’?” (16:17–18), they weren’t confused because they lacked intelligence. They were confused because they loved Him. The ones closest to the quake feel the tremors first.
Jesus’ phrasing was designed to crack open their categories of what presence means. The cracking was necessary. What would come next needed room.
Earlier, He had said the Spirit would bring everything to their remembrance (16:13).
They didn’t yet know remembrance could become a meeting place.
They didn’t know consciousness could grow roots.
They didn’t know the slow fire of the Spirit could simmer grief into something luminous.
Only later would they look back and say, “He was describing the shape of our future.”
A Modern Echo: Bill’s Presence After Loss
The pattern Jesus names here—loss, grief, presence reborn—is not ancient history.
It’s how love works—then and now.
When my friend and spiritual mentor, Bill, passed away in November 2024, the silence he left behind felt enormous. He was one of those rare people whose presence steadied the room, whose quiet wisdom carried real weight—the kind of person whose way of being with God made you want to lean in.
The absence hit hard.
And grief? Well, grief was just grief.
But then, slowly, something happened—something that began to illuminate this passage for me. His voice began to reappear. Not audibly… just unmistakably. In the strangest moments, I could sense his wisdom rising inside me:
Hold Karen’s hand when you pray.
Treat tasks as what you get to do.
Center your heart before you decide.
Honor the holy joint between husband and wife.
And always—“It doesn’t get any better than this.”
These weren’t leftovers from memory.
They were something warmer.
Something steadier.
Something that felt like presence learning to speak from within.
Each time it happens, I understand Jesus’ promise a little more:
Love, once rooted deeply enough, doesn’t vanish.
It relocates.
To the generations after me
When someone’s wisdom keeps surfacing inside you, notice it. That is how love travels through time. That is how guidance continues, long after the teacher is gone.
What John Might Be Inviting Here
Theologians will debate whether Jesus is referring to future resurrection appearances (N. T. Wright) or to the long arc from the Last Supper to Pentecost (John Shelby Spong). Each captures part of the truth.
But beneath both interpretations lies something profoundly human:
The pattern of love is the pattern of faith.
We learn it the same way.
You admire someone.
You love them.
You lose them.
You grieve.
And then—slowly—you discover a new kind of presence, one that no longer depends on proximity.
This is how the disciples came to recognize Jesus—
not as a figure standing beside them,
but as a presence rising within them.
And it is how anyone, in any century, learns to live with Him.
What if this pattern wasn’t reserved only for Jesus’ followers in the first century? Not to make Him less unique—but to recognize something deeply human He was pointing to. What if grief, memory, and renewed presence is a doorway available to us with every person we love?
Perhaps what our modern culture has reduced to a short visitation and a slightly longer memorial service should instead be longer… more honest… more open to the full ache and the full joy.
We can learn from the Irish wake, the Mexican Día de los Muertos, and the Jewish Shiva. We can spend enough time with the memory of each loved one, walking slowly through the pain until it rises within us as presence, each one with their own unique voice. Wouldn’t that make the veil between us thinner, and our souls richer?
These traditions echo what Jesus names in John 16: that love often becomes clearest—and closest—after we walk through the ache.
A Little While, Revisited
Jesus’ “little while” isn’t about minutes or hours.
It marks the timeline of the heart—its ruptures, its slow repairs, its surprising resurrections.
Grief has its own rhythm.
Love has another.
The Spirit moves on neither schedule.
And yet:
“Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away.” (16:22)
Not because sorrow disappears.
But because presence has shifted location.
It has settled where loss cannot reach.
Again, to those who will live long after me
If you ever find yourself wondering where God is, or where love has gone, or why life feels silent—give it a little while. Let the night speak. Light returns by pathways we don’t expect.
Maybe this is the quiet promise tucked inside the passage:
that the voice we lose becomes the voice that sees us…
recognizes us…
rises within us…
and stays.
Key Takeaways
Jesus names a universal human pattern in John 16: loss → grief → a deeper interior presence.
“I will see you again” reveals a shift from external sight to inward companionship.
The disciples stood at a crossroads—self-pity, denial, nostalgia, revenge—but Jesus guided them toward transformation.
The Spirit turns remembrance into a meeting place, rooting presence in the heart instead of beside it.
This pattern is available to all of us, in every grief, every loss, every beloved voice that rises within.
