<p>16:6 <em>But because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart</em>- We sense the Lord's disappointment that they did not grasp that His departure meant the glorification of the Name, and the receipt by them of the Comforter. All they could think of was His physical presence not being with them, and they were filled with sorrow rather than with the Spirit. And yet the whole of the Lord&rsquo;s last discourse to the twelve reflects His positive view of them- at the very time when their commitment to Him was in some ways at its lowest ebb. For they all forsook Him in His hour of need. He comments that they are filled with sorrow because of their misunderstanding about His departure from them. But He goes on to liken this sorrow to the sorrow of a woman in labour, who forgets that sorrow as soon as her child is born (Jn. 16:6, 20-22). In the analogy, the travailing woman is the disciples, and the new born child is the resurrected Jesus. For &ldquo;then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord&rdquo;. Their &lsquo;sorrow&rsquo; was thereby interpreted by the Lord as their longing and striving towards His resurrection. But this is a very positive way of interpreting their sorrow. Their sorrow was based on their misunderstanding (Jn. 16:6). Yet the Lord saw that deep underneath that sorrow, even though they didn&rsquo;t perceive it themselves, they were actually yearning for His resurrection. This helps explain the slight mismatch in the metaphor; for &quot;sorrow&quot; is not an emotion really associated with a woman facing labour pains; rather, anxiety, stress and fear. But the Lord as it were makes the analogy fit, because He wants to positively represent their sorrow and hope that something positive comes out of it.</p><p>This was all partly due to His penetration of their psychology, but it also reflects the simple fact that He certainly counted them as more spiritual than they actually were. He tells them to &ldquo;ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full&rdquo;, having just defined their future joy as the joy of seeing Him risen from the dead (Jn. 16:24,22). But did they ask to see His resurrection? Not as far as we know; for He upbraids them with their slowness to believe His predictions of resurrection. But despite all that, He said that they <em>would</em> have that joy which would come from asking to see Him risen from the dead. They didn&rsquo;t ask for this, but they would still have the joy. Why? Because He perceived them to have &lsquo;asked&rsquo; for what they didn&rsquo;t actually ask for in so many words. He read their basic inner yearning for Him as a prayer for His resurrection, even though they were far from understanding that He would ever rise again once dead. It&rsquo;s rather like God saying that the righteous remnant in Jerusalem had shaken their head at the Assyrian invaders and laughed at them in faith- when this was certainly not the case on the surface (Is. 37:22). And this Lord is our Lord today, interpreting our innermost, unarticulated desires as prayers to the Father (Rom. 8:26,27). &nbsp;</p>