“Joy in Jesus!” That was the theme of the retreat that Kristi and I led for a church staff earlier this week. We’d like to invite you into the afterglow of this retreat by sharing a short Scripture meditation with you.
Imagine you and I are standing in a vineyard with Jesus and his disciples. He says to us: “Abide in me like these branches abide in the grapevine. Let my words help you to abide in my love just as I abide in my Father’s love. Essential to our shared life is that you love one another as I have love you.” (Paraphrased from the beginning of John 15.)
Then Jesus adds astonishing words that ought to cause us to laugh with delight and go skipping down the street! “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).
And he doesn’t stop there. Later when Jesus prays for his disciples and us he says, “Father… I say these things… so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them” (John 17:1, 13).
Jesus’ joy in us! The full measure of Jesus’ joy in us! Wow!
Don’t Miss Jesus’ Joy!
Jesus’ joy is wonderful! Imagine him at his first miracle turning water into wine, celebrating a wedding, probably dancing with the guests! Hear him tell Peter to catch a fish and pull a coin out of it’s mouth in order to pay their taxes! See him gathering children into his arms and laughing and playing with them!
Think about all the times we read in the Bible statements like, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35). Don’t think Jesus is somber-faced and shuffling his feet to squeeze in a “quiet time” before he gets to work! No! He’s eager to get away for a special opportunity to enjoy “Father and Son intimacies” (Matthew 11:27, MSG).
But for centuries the message of Jesus’ joy seems to have fallen on deaf ears. It’s only in recent generations that artists have portrayed Jesus as joyful — or even smiling! It’s the same with books and commentaries. Even Elton Trueblood’s classic book on The Humor of Christ strains to put a smile on the reader’s face.
Why is Jesus Joyful?
How is our Lord and Savior able to be joyful when he has so much serious work to do? A constant throng of desperate or hurting people pulling on him? Enemies on all sides opposing him and mistreating him?
Even when Jesus was being tortured to death on the cross, dying because of our sins and to reconcile us to God, he’s finding joy in paradise and sharing this with others, even the people who are taunting him and those who are crucifying him.
Jesus is joyful, even when at the same time he may need to confront evil or grieve a death, because he is standing in the spiritual reality of the Kingdom of the Heavens. He lives in continual submission to the God he knows as Abba and he invites us to join him in the happy embrace of heaven — even now!
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The joy of Jesus is everywhere in the gospels. “Smile, Play, and Laugh with Jesus” gives some delightful examples and pictures of Jesus’ sense of humor and his joy.
