Jn 16:16-20
[Jesus said to his disciples,] 16“A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.” 17So some of his disciples said to one another, “What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18So they said, “What is this ‘little while’ [of which he speaks]? We do not know what he means.” 19Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing with one another what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? 20Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”
A little while. This phrase is used seven times in John’s gospel—that is not a little while. We use it often, too. When asked to do something, we reply, “In a while.” When called to change, we say, “In a little while, Lord.” We use it to refer to an indefinite period of time: when we want things delayed, forgotten, or postponed, we say, “In a while.”
But for Jesus “a little while” means change and hope. It means things will turn out right for those who love and believe in the Lord. In your loneliness, I will turn up to be with you in a little while. In your grief, I will be there to comfort you in a little while. Why worry, in a little while the sun will rise. Darkness will give in to light in a little while. Have hope.
A little while is the bridge to change, to action, to realization. A little while, for Jesus, means one step closer.