Christian Art | Easter To Pentecost
John 16: 20-22 | King James Audio Bible | Daily Verses
20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
21 A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.
22 And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, the image of a woman giving birth is often used to express great pain. It is also often used, especially by the prophets, to signify the birth of the new messianic people – see, for example, Isaiah. Jesus recalls both the pain of the Old Testament and the hope and fulfilment expressed through the prophets. The new birth is imminent. Through the sorrow and pain of the crucifixion, we are called to God.
Jesus, then, in these verses, uses both a familiar, everyday analogy to help the disciples understand what is happening, and draws on the language and understandings of the Old Testament to show how he is the fulfilment of the prophecies.
Jesus reassures his disciples, and his message of reassurance is also for us. Inevitably, there are times when we sorrow in this life. We know, however, that Christ is with us. And we will see Christ fully when we pass from this life, and that joy will have no end.
‘12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.’ St Paul’s Letter to the Romans
King James Audio Bible | Endnotes
Verily Verily | The King James Version As Masterpiece In English
Jesus uses the analogy of a woman in labour to illustrate the pain that his disciples will feel at his departure, but also the joy that will come when they are reunited with him.
The English of the King James Version rises to the challenge of Jesus’ mastery of story-telling. The KJV is often praised for its poetic beauty and use of slightly for the times archaic English – drawing upon previous English translations of the Bible as well as a rich English literature tradition including William Shakespeare. Those who translated the KJV certainly intended to create a literary masterpiece as well as an accurate translation of original texts.
Many have praised the KJV Bible. Here is a selection of what has been said:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote:
‘The language of the Bible has no less impressed and stamped its character on the Saxon dialects, than the Latin has on the Southern tongues of Europe. And I am not sure, whether, taking all the circumstances together, it is not the grandest style that has ever been written,–the sublimest, perhaps, of human composition.’
C.S. Lewis wrote:
‘The English Bible, as [William] Tyndale translated it and as revised by the scholars of 1611, has nourished a language which, for beauty and richness, is probably unequalled in the world.’
John Milton wrote:
‘The King James Bible is the best English version of the best book, and its poetic and rhythmic qualities are now well known. Its language is plain, majestic, and powerful, and it has influenced our language and literature more than any other book in the world.’
Harold Bloom wrote:
‘The King James Version is our language’s high point, a culmination of sorts that we can identify as mystical. It has given us not only the language of our faith but also a language that is singular in its beauty, rhythm, and poetic force.’
George Santayana wrote:
‘The King James Version is the most beautiful of all translations of the Bible, and as literature it is simply unsurpassed. Its language is precise, yet rich and musical, and it has had a profound influence on English literature and culture.’
H.L. Mencken wrote:
‘The King James Version of the Bible is probably the most beautiful piece of writing in all the literature of the world. It has a majestic simplicity and an unearthly grace that makes it impossible to read without a sense of awe and wonder.’
T.S. Eliot wrote:
‘The King James Version of the Bible is a masterpiece of English prose, and its influence on our language and literature cannot be overstated. Its language is both simple and profound, and its rhythms and cadences have become part of our cultural DNA.’
Virginia Woolf wrote:
‘The King James Bible is, for prose writers, a great masterpiece of English prose; for it combines splendour with simplicity, elevation with directness and force. It has, above all, a noble rhythm, and one reads it aloud with a sense of something purged and chastened, something purified and strengthened.’
Ezra Pound wrote:
‘The most beautiful book in the world? It is the King James Bible. No other book has such beauty in both phrase and rhythm. The music of it is like that of a great river, and it has set a standard for the English language that has never been surpassed.’
Stephen Greenblatt wrote:
‘The King James Bible is one of the great works of world literature. It is also, in a sense, a crowning achievement of English literary genius. Its influence has been incalculable, both in the dissemination of the Christian message and in the shaping of the English language itself.’
Dear Jesus, In times of trouble and distress, I come to you, seeking comfort and peace. You understand the depths of my heart and the challenges I face. I bring my burdens to you, as they feel heavy and overwhelming. I trust that you will provide the rest and strength I need during these difficult moments [ … ]
Saint Gregory, one of the Cappadocian Fathers and a central figure in fourth-century theology, explores what it means to bear the name ‘Christian’. Drawing heavily from the writings of Saint Paul, he lays out a vision of spiritual transformation in which the believer becomes an ‘alter Christus’ – another Christ [ … ]
On Tuesday, His Grace turns to the theme of Jesus’ hidden years. His Grace asks the students to consider questions concerning what really happened: ‘Who, for instance, was Joseph? Was he indeed a carpenter, or has Joseph’s true role in the society in which he lived been misconstrued and forgotten to us? Though it be a beautiful, simplifying image to grasp, which offers to us much that is of value in Catholic faith… ‘A wise elder, which carpenter could mean, or a great engineer, an architekton, which in the Greek does not mean carpenter. But carpenter in the Hebrew could mean a wise man…’ His Grace turns the pages of his Bible back and forth, as if to itemize the paucity of information. Then he says: ‘What I think I can say to you with confidence is that it is of profound significance that we simply don’t know what Jesus was doing for most of his earthly life. There are some very different possibilities. One idea cherished by the Church is that Jesus worked with his father Joseph as a carpenter. Another possibility is that Jesus lived and prayed and studied closely with John the Baptist. They were cousins, and very close, almost the same, in age. Luke’s Gospel tells us clearly that Jesus and John knew each other from within the womb before they were born. So there may have been something quite important happening there. You see, we don’t know – it is an impossible mystery to us – just how much Jesus had to learn. This is because, if Jesus knew everything, humanly speaking, even as a tiny baby, then how can we say he is fully human? We simply can’t probe too far into this mystery, but we can draw extraordinary truth and healing from this thought, which becomes of immense relevance in our own lives. Jesus came to know and to understand himself not merely as a son of God, but as God the Son, and so as self-identical with his Father. It is not an adoptive relationship. Jesus is God. Now so much is hidden here. But this is a great gift. If you think about it, how do we come to know that we are loved by God, that we have our relationship with God? What are we born with in here’ – his chest – ‘and what do we have to learn? This is to say, what is gifted to us by other Christians at our baptism? ‘Jesus must have studied, and experienced profound revelation about who and what he truly was, and, so it seems to be, these studies cannot have been confined to the Semitic world. But this is the important point: there is a hiddenness about all of this. No matter which schools and which sects our Lord might have encountered all these years, this to us is as a desert space. What this means is that we can enter into the hidden life of Jesus, and there we can discover our own being with God, our own sonship. Our own particular being loved by God can come to us, if we can enter within this great unknown – into this desert space, where we are loved by Jesus. I firmly believe that there may be a great Lenten mystery in this period of our Lord’s life.’ A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 1 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 2 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 3 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 4 | King James Audio Bible | KJV A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 5 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Holy Week | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 6
