March 03, 2005
The Joy of Jesus
Psalm 1 / Proverbs 17: 22-28
Matthew 9: 10-15
July 21st, 2002
This morning I begin a series of glimpses at the character of Jesus. We pastors talk about many matters in our sermons. I have preached expository sermons consecutively through books of both Old and New Testaments. I have done this in order to lead us to think about the "whole council of God." I have preached sermons on the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed, on the Lord’s Prayer, on issues of life. But I can’t remember doing a series of studies on Jesus Himself.
The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, "Look at Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfector of our Faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame . . ." Look at Jesus! In the course of His life on earth, Jesus drew people’s attention not because they knew He was the Son of God, "of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made." They did not know that in Him was the "fullness of the godhead bodily." They did not know He was the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who "emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant." They were attracted to Jesus because He radiated love, joy, peace, compassion, gentleness, meekness, winsome qualities of character–the kind you and I are drawn to.
As I’ve mentioned to some of you, one of the most influential elements in my training at Princeton Seminary was to hear Professor Bruce Metzger pray before class. We flocked to his class because he was the preeminent NT scholar of several generations. He will go down in history as another Erasmus, another Origen. But what I remember is his prayers. Invariably he prayed before class that our studies would help us learn of Jesus so as to present Him winsomely, that people may trust in Him. He not only prayed this, when we students spoke with him, he gave us the impression that we, individually, were very important to him.
When I think of Bruce Metzger, somehow I think of Jesus. I’ve learned so much from him about the New Testament and early Church history. But he planted a seed in my mind of how a person can take on the character of Jesus.
We look many places beside Jesus to fuel our faith. We look in nooks and crannies of theology, in nooks and crannies of interpretation of the Bible, in nooks and crannies of morality. We reflect what we look for. Sometimes I think we must look crooked-necked for all the angles we put our heads to discover how a Christian is to be. Let’s look at Jesus.
In one of our Christmas hymns we sing, "For He is our childhood’s pattern, day by day like us He grew." But this sentimental idea stops short. We see Jesus cute and cuddly in the crèche. What if Jesus were our grown-up pattern so that day by day we grow like Him?
E. Stanley Jones, the Methodist missionary in India, found that when he offered lectures on Jesus, educated Hindus flocked to hear him. A Brahman priest introduced him. He soon learned never to announce he was going to talk about Christianity. Folk in India knew enough about that apparently Western religion, Christianity to make them turn away. They'd seen up close and personal employees of the British East India Company and many missionaries.
A number of influential New Testament scholars and theologians have told us we can know very little about Jesus personally. The Jesus Seminar folk tell us almost nothing in the New Testament comes from Jesus. One twentieth-century theologian wrote, "The idea that faith is in any sense based on the impression made by the personality of Jesus is completely mistaken." He warned that trying to inspect what the New Testament tells us about Jesus has often led to quirky Jesus-cults. He cited, for example, Nicholas von Zinzendorf, who triggered the Pietist movement in Moravia, a mystical outgrowth from 18th century Lutheranism.
Zinzendorf tried to promote intimate fellowship with Jesus. His community at Herrnhut was in some ways quirky. But some beautiful hymns came out of pietism. Zinzendorf wrote 2,000 hymns, believing that if Christians sang together it would kindle in them the joy of the Lord, and bond them to Him and to one another. Charles Wesley made beloved one of my favorite of Zinzendorf’s hymns
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
‘midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head."
But indeed it hasn’t been all roses when Christians have tried to cultivate what they believe is Jesus’ way. Strange things sometimes happen in little groups that try to mimic Jesus’ personality. The most severe monasticism arose among those who believed Jesus’ poverty was the most important aspect of his life. Some pious folk think that to be like Jesus is to try to be simply "perfect." Strange ideas percolate about what it is to be perfect. Some earnest folk who try to mimic Jesus become proud of how they improve on ordinary Christians. Thus their ambition to be like Jesus leads them to be very unlike Him. How clever Wormwood is!
If you were to begin to describe Jesus, where would you start? How would you separate aspects of Jesus’ character and personality to see them one by one? I'm going to try.
I want to begin to speak of the joy of Jesus. Perhaps today we need to remember this more than ever. In 1954, two words, "under God," were added to our Pledge of Allegiance. One of our popular news magazines proposed a week or so ago that we’ve become a nation "under anti-depressants." How the church needs to share the joy of Jesus!
Towards the end of his time with the Twelve Jesus told them, "These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full." Jesus' final teaching big teaching accentuated joy. In his most painful hour He promised joy.
The oldest dictionary I have defines joy as "vivid emotion of pleasure, gladness, thing that causes delight." Most often we think of joy as a sudden and passing feeling. Our emotions change on a dime. Most of us are moderately bipolar, up one moment, down the next. Was this Jesus’ joy, a periodic thing, followed by being glum? Jesus supplied us with a very thought-provoking picture of joy.
In the short passage from Matthew that we read, disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus. They asked why His disciples didn’t fast, when they did and the Pharisees did. The Pharisees fasted two days a week. They fasted because they still mourned the destruction of the first Temple, because they wanted the return of God’s presence to the Temple. The Ark of the Covenant was lost. If rain didn’t fall and the ground got hard and dry, three days of fasting were required to impress on God the need for rain. Fasting, giving up food at regular intervals, making yourself feel hungry is a way of impressing God. It is a discipline that intends to make the spiritual part of you grow by repressing the physical part of you. Because you don’t feel good when you’re hungry, it is reflected in your face. Thus, sadness is equated with the best spirituality. Jesus teased the Pharisees and taught His disciples, "If you fast, don't let your face proclaim it." If you smile too much, you must be up to something no good. A long face says, "Look how religious I am; I fast!"
Jesus put in a different light the whole matter of fasting. If you put the whole gloomy system of fasting into the way of life I am showing you, it's like putting new wine in old wineskins. The new wine ferments and explodes. The old wineskin isn't strong enough. It's new wine I'm giving you. If you abide in Me, I give you joy. Joy like new wine tends to ferment and explode.
Jesus asked John’s disciples, "Do wedding guests mourn when the bridegroom is with them?" You and I might ask this differently, "Do wedding guests mourn when the bride is with them?" Jesus never got married but weddings and marriage were important in His teaching. Whether married or not we see the point. Marriage is a clue to how central JOY is to following Jesus. Jesus’ first miracle, you remember, was at a wedding. Of all things, He turned water into wine! When history ends and eternity takes over completely, it will begin with "the marriage supper of the Lamb!"
I’ve been a part of several very happy weddings this summer. I don’t know what others see most, but I am fascinated to watch the delight of the brides and grooms who bask in the new sense that they "officially" belong to each other. The wonderful, warm feeling of being "officially" one with one’s beloved–"in the presence of God and these witnesses" casts a glow over one’s friends and family too--on both sides. This is joy. But marriage is not all sentiment and romance.
From now on, a new purpose governs life–to grow to oneness with my bride, with my groom. The joy of marriage is found in growing nearer to each other as the years go by. Happy times, sad times, temptations, sickness, come what may, taking them in together steadily weaves together profound joy in a marriage as they test and foster greater and greater oneness.
When the bride and groom repeat the marriage vows their faces are intense with determination as they say, "For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health--as long as we both shall live. This is my solemn vow!" They will grow old together, their oneness daily increasing as they share the good and the bad times. A long marriage that fulfills this is a joy to experience and to observe.
I tell prospective brides and grooms who come to me for pre-marriage counsel that their work, their careers, are for the purpose of the home. For a marriage to work, you’ve got to remember what’s important. When we remember what’s important, it’s remarkable what a happy thing marriage is.
Marriage is a terrific clue to Jesus’ reason for joy. I realize that not all of you are married, but perhaps you get the picture.
Jesus’ joy came because He remembered what was really important in life. Jesus said, "My will is to do the will of Him who sent me." In happy marriages, the will of husband and wife grow increasingly one. It is never far from the husband’s mind consciously and unconsciously, "What will please my wife?" It is never far from the wife’s mind--increasingly without thinking of it, "What will please my husband?" If your marriage is drifting, perhaps one or the other, or both, have forgotten to ask that question. "What do I most want?" Jesus never forgot. "My will is to do the will of my Father who sent me."
What do you want out of life? Maybe your own security, your own pleasure, your own self-interest are most important to you. I’m sorry to say that if this is so, you’ll not find joy. You’ll never be secure enough. You’ll never have enough pleasure. Meeting your own self-interest isn’t big enough to satisfy you. And then there's all those difficult people to contend with!
If you and I very deliberately approach each day consciously asking ourselves, "What is the will of my heavenly Father," we are on the threshold of joy. It’s remarkable how broadly that question applies, "What is the will of my Father in heaven?"
Second, Jesus never lost the sense that day after day, He was in the presence of God. Fullness of joy comes when we live in a deep sense of the presence of God. "In Thy presence is fullness of joy," the psalmist wrote.
What's so good about being in the presence of God? Well, to begin with we know where we really belong. As we say in that gracious first question of the Heidelberg Catechism, "In life and in death, I belong to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ." Second, we are in an environment where our sins are forgiven. Sin is a lot more than a pastor's bully word. It throttles the life out of life. Third, in God's presence we see a wholesome path of life. Our hearts confirm what Scripture tells us of the way of life.
Again, how this is illustrated in a joyous marriage. At the end of the day, when we are together again, into the presence of each other, so many of life’s cares evaporate. It is a picture of Jesus with His father. Jesus was as fully a human person as we are. He was not "up there" in heaven with the Father, so He had to use the day well to bring close to Him the sense of the presence of His Father in heaven. That's why Jesus used the early morning to pray. His disciples realized Jesus spoke with His Father, thus beginning the day. How good when you and I use the earliest part of the day to begin deliberately in the presence of God.
Jesus was no more or less in the presence of God than we are. We say rightly that Jesus was God made flesh. But I’m asking you to put in a parenthesis that you know that. He was also fully human, as fully human as you are. He needed to begin the day in prayer, as you do, as I do.
You need never forget that you live in the presence of God. Some of us never get beyond the sense of being in the presence of myself. Joy, that deep well-spring of joy, comes when we are caught up with something big enough. Realizing we are in the presence of God gives purpose to every aspect of life. It is a big enough awareness to affect every relationship, to take in stride every situation. We live in the great parenthesis of the presence of God. Acknowledge it.
When we read the Gospels, we see Jesus in a lot of situations that don’t look very comfortable. There were religious leaders who didn’t like Him. His popularity with common people made them jealous. John tells us "He came to His own home and His own received Him not." Think of how you’d feel if your family didn’t receive you.
But Jesus’ joy beamed from him even in these circumstances, drawing to Him weary people, heavy-laden people, sick people, well people, sinner people, saintly people. Why? Because His joy was very attractive. Jesus could stay joyful because He knew His purpose in life. "My will is to do the will of Him who sent me." He was always about "His father’s business." He lived in the sense of the presence of God. Here is the secret of joy–that steady sense that "all is well and all manner of things will be well," as Dame Julian of Norwich put it.
Are things well with you? What do you want to do? Maybe you're weary with your job, with where you live, with the people in your life. Have you asked, "What is the will of my Father in heaven, as it may apply to each of these matters?" Do you live aware that you are in the presence of God? The answer you give to these two questions suggests whether you have joy in life or not. I pray we all discover joy like a river, joy like a fountain. How good is a life of joy! How attractive is a life of joy! How accessible is the life of joy! How good is the life of a church whose people have joy! How fortunate the town blessed with people who live in the presence of God, whose will is bound to the will of God.
O Lord, may our will be your will. May that we are in your presence never leave our minds. Grant us joy. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
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