Lent 3: 11th March 2007: St. Mary's at 8am and 9.30am: Revd Julia Boothby

"Joy"

Our reading today from Isaiah finishes with those wonderful words

"…you shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace, the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into song and the trees of the fields shall clap their hands."

Surely this is such a wonderful picture of joy. It was written of the joy that the Israelites would feel as they returned to Jerusalem, following the exile in Babylon and the prophet paints a wonderful picture with these words of the great joy that they would feel, that all of nature would be caught up in.

Joy is a very powerful word and in our Lent course we are looking at the subject this week. For some the words 'joy' and 'Christian' do not belong together. I read a few years ago a newspaper article written by someone famous after they had attended a baptism service in Church. In it they deplored the depressing hymns, the unfathomable sermon and the lack of warmth. He concluded by saying

"church should be a joyous and liberating experience…the church badly needs a facelift because it is God’s theatre on earth and he should be packing them in."

Harsh words, perhaps, but then I am sure some of us have perhaps had similar experiences. And it is not just in our Church services, but in our lives, that we can come across as forbidding and distinctly unjoyful. Writing, after his death, the daughter of Betrand Russell wrote this;

“I would have liked to convince my father that I had found what he had been looking for, the ineffable something that he had longed for all his life. But it was hopeless. He had known too many blind Christians, bleak moralists who sucked the joy from life and persecuted their opponents. He would never have been able to see the truth they were hiding.”

But if, on the one hand, we are faced with criticism for being bleak and lacking in joy, on the other hand, any display of emotion or enthusiasm is labelled as ‘happy clappy’ or emotional manipulation. It seems that we cannot win! Of course this criticism so often comes from those who never set foot inside a church except for weddings, baptisms or funerals and their evidence comes from TV documentaries and press clippings. But they do make us take seriously the Biblical teaching on joy, of which there is a lot.

If you type the word 'joy' into a bible concordance for the Revised Standard Version then you come up with 164 entries. There are apparently 15 different Hebrew words and 8 Greek words that are used to describe joy and they cover a whole range of meanings from rejoicing, gladness, pleasure, to the more specific such as words that mean leaping and dancing for joy, shouting or crying aloud for joy.   The circumstances of joy in the Bible are also many and varied but they cover…what we could perhaps call everyday human life. For example, the joy that is to be found in love and human relationships, the joy of giving birth and parenting, the joy of material abundance, the joy of celebrating the harvest and the bounty of the earth. These are things that all of humanity can know and share in.

But the largest category of joy related texts in the Bible have to do with relationship with God.

The joy of the Lord is my strength;
You O lord have made be glad at the work of your hands I sing for joy;
My heart and flesh cry for joy to the living God;
Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart for I am called by your name O Lord God of hosts;
The seventy two disciples returned with joy and said Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name;
If you obey my commandments you will remain in my love…..I have told you this that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

In both the Old and the New Testament, joy is the hallmark of the believer and of the church. What marks it out as different to the joy that the world talks of, is that it is not simply an emotion, but a quality. It is not dependent on circumstances but on relationship with God, and as such, is a hallmark of belief, both of the individual and of the church.

Let me say that again, the joy that the Bible speaks of is not simply an emotion, but a quality, and it is that unique joy that we are called on to demonstrate at all times. The joy of the world is dependent on things going well, on health and wealth, on circumstance and situation. The joy of the Lord is not dependent on these things, but simply upon God. This then is why Paul can write in Philippians;

“Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again rejoice.”

In a sermon entitled 'Weeping and Whistling' John Gladstone wrote this

“Joy is a product of possessing the Spirit and being possessed by the Spirit. It is the conscious possession of power adequate enough to carry us through every trial, every situation, and it will remain ours to the end…..In this life; we shall never be free of sorrow. But then we shall never be free of joy. And joy is the dominant note. We are in touch with a power that dries all tears, lifts all burdens, satisfies all needs. Our lives are hidden with God in Christ.”

For many years as a Christian I believed that I was safe in God’s hands, that disaster and grief could not touch me, that I would always be able to rejoice because God would watch over me and mine, and keep us all safe. Then, when our middle son was still very young, he developed a medical condition that potentially was very serious. For many months I had to undergo the agony of watching and waiting as he underwent tests and as they tried what seemed like a whole pharmacy full of drugs on him.

I wept, I shouted and I argued with God. How could I trust him? How could I possibly rejoice whilst I daily faced the possibility of losing a child? And the heavens were silent. Finally, after many months of struggling, I began to understand that the peace and the joy that the Bible speak of are not dependent on me, my circumstances or even my emotions. They are entirely dependent on God. I learned that it was still possible to have peace and even know joy because God was bigger than any problem or situation I could face. I learned that whilst I may have to suffer grief and pain and even face the prospect of loss, that God was still bigger and that he would help me through whatever the world threw at me. I learned that it was possible to rejoice because whatever I went through Christ had also endured and redeemed by his death. Finally I understood those words of Mother Julian of Norwich that had for a long time mystified me...

“All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”

I had never previously understood that.  I always, in my mind, had a list of things that had to be in place before I would be able to say that…the health of my family, the security of a home, and those sorts of things. Now I realised that her words were not dependent on situation or circumstance, but on God, who, in whatever circumstances, could and would give me joy and peace if I could begin to trust in him.

In time, and following surgery, the medical condition was completely resolved, but that time changed me and gave me a completely new outlook on my faith. And I know that I am not the only one who has learnt through trials and tribulations far greater than mine, that God is always there. He sent Jesus into this world to die for all of our sins, and in so doing to bring meaning and hope to all the circumstances of our lives…and to bring into them a joy and a peace that the world cannot understand or know.

Richard Foster sums up this joy when he says this;

“ ..This is a deep resonant joy that has been shaped and tempered by the fires of suffering and sorrow- joy through the cross, joy because of the cross.”

Jesus came into the world to show us God’s love, to die for our sins and to open the way to everlasting life. He has shared our humanity and redeemed our suffering and it is through him that we can know the peace and the joy of the Lord, a joy that passes all human understanding. The joy of the Lord is our strength.

Amen