“but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” John 16:22
“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you,
and that your joy may be full.” John 15:11 (9-17)
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of the prolific Northern Irish writer, C. S. Lewis. Although he taught at both Oxford and Cambridge, Lewis is perhaps best known for his children’s stories The Chronicles of Narnia. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he writes the following,
Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning – either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning, too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again.
It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump inside…Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of the summer.
That feeling Lewis was trying to describe is “joy”, pure, unadulterated “joy”. Joy is something that we feel in special, pleasurable moments in life. It happens, for instance, when someone falls in love. I remember chatting to a woman in one of my former congregations. She spoke to me about the despair she felt when her husband left her and she was facing life alone. We talked from time to time during some very dark days. But then, as if by magic, about two years after her husband left, her demeanour suddenly changed. She came to church one Sunday absolutely glowing. She had met someone. There were instant sparks. Excitement was just oozing from her being. As she told me about him, I was a little amused and happy for her, for I could see that the fog had lifted. I thought to myself, she’s walking on air and she isn’t a particularly light woman. Love can do that to a person … it seems to bring pure joy.
It is the same at the birth of a new child. I remember a year or so after I was married, visiting some friends who had a one year old. He was so cute with his first steps. The parents would applaud his every move and he would flash the greatest smile as he walked around a coffee table. Viewing this was like candy for other young couples and I remember having the conversation with my wife, and uttering those ill-fated words, “We should have one of those.” The thought had barely crossed my mind, when the pregnancy was announced. But then there was the almost eternal wait for the birth. Finally, the day arrives for young couples. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the birth is easy or difficult, almost as soon as a child is born, a moment of magic takes place. The pain is forgotten and as each parent takes the child in their arms some ineffable thing happens. There is wonder, amazement, love, and a joy felt deep down in one’s soul.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines joy as a state of happiness or felicity, an emotion evoked by a sense of well-being. Synonyms are gladness, pleasure, bliss, delight, exultation, an exhilaration of spirits. Given that we are still in the church season of Easter, I wonder if those are not the same emotions that the disciples would have felt on and after the first Easter day?
Jesus’ trial and crucifixion had brought them low. The one they had followed, the one they had trusted, the one whom they had thought was going to do something new in Judaea had been brought down. They had seen their friend and leader beaten, hung on a cross, dead, and buried. It was over; the end of their hopes, the end of their dreams, the end of life as they knew it. On Good Friday, their hearts sank in pain and grief. What now? Where were they to go?
But nothing had prepared them for the “what now,” or for what they experienced on the first Easter day! We know the story of how, on the first day of the week, some of their women set out for the tomb to anoint the body. When they got there, the stone over the tomb had been removed. A young man dressed in a white robe said, “Don’t be alarmed, you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.” “Oh yeh!” “’Waddaya’ mean?” was the initial response. It was unbelievable. Resurrections don’t happen and Mark’s Gospel says that they fled the tomb in terror and amazement.” Peter and John ran to the tomb to see what had happened. Their hearts must have been thumping at Mary’s report. They too saw the empty tomb but, according to John’s Gospel, they did not understand. Perhaps it was in the room when the disciples were together, sans Thomas, that they began to get it; when Jesus came to them. His first words were, “Peace/shalom/well-being be with you,” for they were afraid. He showed them his hands and his side and they believed.
One can just imagine them after he had left. Their hearts would have been racing. They would have been pacing around the room, shaking their heads, saying, “This is crazy!” “What is this?” “Things like this don’t happen!” But at the same time the very thing that made them pace, and shake their heads, filled them with excitement and joy. Their thoughts would have been muddled. Their excitement had to overcome the reality that everyone knew. They had to process something outside of common knowledge; but in the midst of it a joy bubbled up, and especially when Jesus appeared again, to others. You may recall, the time Jesus appeared to two other disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were distraught, heads down, defeated at the loss of their leader. The “stranger” who walked along with them asked them what was wrong and, after they told him about Jesus and the cross, he began to teach them from the scriptures that the messiah had to suffer and then enter his glory. Later, when they finally lifted their heads and recognized Jesus, he left them and they said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” It was that burning, the excitement, the surprise, the joy of something absolutely incredible that led the disciples out into the streets and the countryside and far away with the good news that Jesus was risen, there was something more to life than this.
These surprising events seem to lie behind the thoughts of chapter 16 of John’s Gospel. Chapter 16 is in the middle of a lengthy, four-chapter, final discourse that Jesus has with his closest followers. He is teaching them about things that are imminent. He asks them to follow God’s commands, love one another, and talks of the coming of the Holy Spirit. In the midst of these, he mentions “joy” several times. There is one in 15:11 when he speaks of abiding in God’s love and following God’s commands – when you find yourself living for God, you can be sure you are abiding in his love. There is an assurance to this and, he goes on, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete,” says Jesus. Then in 16:22 he points to an imminent struggle. The disciples are about to experience grief and pain. He is leaving them, however, in a little while, “I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
This passage begs to be interpreted on several levels and scholars are all over the place as they try to read it within its context. One interpretation sees in it the pain of the crucifixion and wondering joy of the resurrection. Another relates it to the extended period of Jesus’ absence, the persecution of the church, and the joy that will be felt at Jesus second coming. But I have often wondered if the passage also relates to the coming of the Holy Spirit that proceeds from the Father and Son. The coming of the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ key thought in these chapters, the Spirit which comes to remind his followers of what he had said (14:26), to prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness (16:7ff.) and to guide them into all truth (16:13). And, I have wondered when the Spirit of God comes … Is there a joy that is experienced any time God comes among us, whether Father, Son, or Spirit?
From time to time I have wondered about this religious thing? Is Christianity mere assent to the principle of Jesus as son of God? Or is there something more to it? Is it just a recognition of past events or is there something palpable that occurs in a human life here and now, to lift, to bring joy, to bring assurance and encouragement that we are on the right track?
Well, if we go back to C. S. Lewis, he was an individual who definitely experienced something as he progressed from atheism to theism and then to Christianity. He wrote about it in his book, Surprised by Joy, because it was joy that he encountered as his reflections led him nearer and nearer to God. It was as if God had entered his mundane existence and brought these moments, moments of light, moments of truth that became moments of joy and spurred him on to become one of the greatest apologists for Christian faith in the 20th century.
I think I know what he means. Several times I have experienced some inexplicable god-moment. One was so unexpected that I have hardly known what to do with it. It was while at my last parish, there was a stage in which I was so busy that I didn’t know what to do. I was running here, there, and yonder, was feeling stressed, empty, and academic work had me debating about the faith. On a Thursday morning, I had tickets to a Prayer Breakfast and have to admit that begrudgingly I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. I was tired. I didn’t need this. 6:00 a.m. came and I hit snooze button. 6:10 came and I hit the snooze button again. I rose at 6:20, realized that I was now pressed for time, had the quickest shower, dressed, and flew out the door. At 6:45 and 7:00, the traffic was already heavy and as I was stopped by traffic light after traffic light, my stress levels rose. I was going to be late. When I got to the parking lot of the venue, the very large parking lot was almost full. I had to drive far into the reserve parking lot. There were about 1,000 people at this Prayer Breakfast and all of them were there before me. I started the long walk to the hall, then broke out into a trot, and finally ran into the building, found the room, and entered as the opening prayer was taking place. Eventually, I found my place as, it seemed, the whole city was watching and muttering, “He’s late!” I sat down as the singer rose to sing. To this day, I have no idea what the song was but it was about the glory and beauty of heaven. I was still stressed and perspiring from running, but as the song went on, I was somehow drawn into it. It was as though I was unexpectedly drawn up into heaven itself. I wasn’t feeling in a spiritual mood before, it just happened and it seemed that a great weight was lifted off me. The stress disappeared. The tension that had dominated my life for so long, evaporated. The intellectual questions vanished. I have no other world for it but joy, I was surprised by joy. Totally surprised!
After the event, I drove to my church. I walked into the building with a skip in my step and told my secretary about it. I said, “Something happened to me over there,” and I told her about it. She said quite nonchalantly, “That’s the Spirit. You’ve been touched by the Spirit.” Being a main-line church person, I smiled and wandered into my office. But something happened there and I can tell you that whatever it was it carried me for weeks and months, I continued to feel this joy.
275 years ago this month, John Wesley wrote this in his journal,
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart.
After years of angst and searching, that night sent Wesley out into the world and is often thought to have been the beginning of the Methodist and thus 55 or 60% of the UnitedChurch movement. His heart was warmed. What was this inexplicable thing that infused and surprised Wesley’s heart on that night? Is it like love entering one’s heart? Is it something similar to that first experience with a new-born child? Is it the feeling a school child gets when she wakes up on the first morning of the summer holidays? Is this particular heart-warming, joy connected with the coming of the Spirit of God?
In over 25 years of ministry, I have presided over many services of varying kinds. I have presided over many funerals for instance. At TEMC, I have presided over funerals that dwarf our Easter services in terms of attendance and musical content. While in my last parish, the largest funeral I presided over brought a whole school and community out to mourn the tragic death of a young teenager. But more that these, the funeral that I remember most took place in the smallest congregation that I ever served. It was a little Methodist congregation in western Quebec. I served there on an interim basis for almost a year while doing doctoral studies. Leo Tolstoy is said to have found his greatest assurance of Christianity in the simple faith of the peasant people of Russia, and I think that I found something similar in rural, western Quebec. I noted it especially in a memorial service for a member of one of the key families of the church. At first, I was surprised by their choices of hymns and direction of the service. I wanted some solemnity to the occasion to mark the loss. But as the service went on, I was drawn into the moment and the people’s faith. They sang gospel hymns of pointing toward heaven. “And he the pearly gates will open, So that I may enter in; for he purchased my redemption, and forgave me all my sin.” “While we walk the pilgrim pathway, clouds will overspread the sky; But when trav’ling days are over, not a shadow, not a sigh. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be! When we all see Jesus, We’ll sing and shout the victory.” Is that not a mark of joy!
The thing about those people as they sang those hymns was the glow in their face. Here they were, even the family of the deceased in the midst of pain and grief, but something buoyed them up even in adversity. They had a joy, they had something in their hearts that gave them an inexplicable assurance.
And Jesus said, “now is your time for grief and pain, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” John 16:22
May God come and surprise each one of us with that joy. Behold, he stands at the door and knocks.