Jesus is speaking to His disciples at the Last Supper. Dark days are coming for them, whose reality they cannot yet realise. But, as Jesus goes through His Passion, there will be "weeping and wailing" on their part. Perhaps they will be filled with a kind of despair. All their hopes in Jesus will be shattered. They are filled fear for their own lives and, when Jesus dies on the cross, they will have completely disappeared in fear and terror. As the days pass, they will lock themselves in that "upper room". And, yet, like a woman bringing a child to birth, their pain will be turned into unspeakable joy as their Lord returns to them in triumph. They will be transformed from men of fear to people who have a Message and an experience which they want everyone to share. And this experience will be repeated more than once in their lives as we see in the experience of Paul in Corinth today, where, as he preaches Jesus' message of love and peace, he comes under violent attack. Things have not changed very much in the 21st century. May we have some of that spirit of Paul in the way we live out our Christian faith.