Gaudete
December 16, 2012
The Church Year began in the only way it can, if it is going to do what
it is meant to do. And so it began by pointing us to the cross. Jesus is
carried into town on a donkey only so that He can die. The Church Year moved us
further into itself by very plainly showing us what kind of people we are. We
are people of hope. When we see Jesus going into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday we
see God’s grace. Because of His grace we have hope. Today the Church Year shows
us that we are people of joy. Last week we saw how hope for Christians is a
very different thing from simply wishing and hoping things to be true. It’s not
that we need to have hope, we do have hope. It’s not that we hope for God’s
grace, it’s that He is a gracious God and saves us. Therefore we have hope.
Do we also have joy? We are a people of hope. Are we also a people of
joy? In the Introit we were exhorted, “Rejoice in the Lord always!” Do we do
that? Do you have joy?—period, end of statement? Do you have joy no matter your
feelings, whatever your circumstances, whatever you do or no matter what happens
to you? Or, even as you can see holding on to hope, do you see yourself as one
who knows you are saved by grace, have the hope of eternal life… but the joy?
The joy just isn’t there? Do you see yourself as the recipient of the
exhortation to rejoice always, because you don’t?
Even as hope in the world is far different from hope the Scriptures
call us to, so it is with joy. True joy is not like joy that the world thinks
of. To the world joy is conditional. If things are going well, you have happiness,
well-being, joy. Even if you’re in a time of trial but you can see light at the
end of the tunnel, you have some reason for being glad because you know your
circumstances will change. To be sure, there certainly is a blessing in good
circumstances. God has blessed us with abundant blessings and provides for us
and gives us things in which we can take pleasure and in which we can be happy.
So it’s not that the Bible is telling us we shouldn’t be happy.
But it is telling us that we have true joy. No matter our circumstances
we have true joy. No matter what we’re going through we can rejoice in the
Lord. The practical question then would be, “How is this so?” How is it
possible to be people of joy, to have joy no matter our circumstances? If it’s
not tied to my feelings, or my circumstances, what is it tied to?
The answer to that we see from today’s Scripture readings. As is always
the case in the Church Year we are shown that we must not get so caught up in
our circumstances that we lose sight of Christ. The reason the Church Year does
this is because the Bible itself does this. Your circumstances are never so
great that the truths of Scripture are diminished by them. You are never in so
much need, or suffering from so many trials, that the central message of the
Word of God takes a back seat.
The word joy in the Scriptures has an aspect to it of being in a state
of well-being. Whereas we often associate it with good feelings and good
circumstances the Bible takes it much deeper than that. The well-being we have
from God, and the joy we have in God, is a fact of being a child of God; not
something that we have only when our circumstances give evidence things are
going well or when our feelings match what we consider rejoicing. We struggle with
this, though, don’t we, because it seems to go against reality. Or at least
reality as it seems to us. And that’s why we must go back to the Scriptures
rather than looking at our circumstances or checking how we’re feeling.
As we head toward the end of Advent consider what we are met with when
we see the great John the Baptist holed up in a prison. One of the benefits of
a free society is that we have a system in which people who commit crimes are
punished accordingly, including being locked up for punishment as well as for protection
for the rest of us. But here’s John, his only crime that of faithfully carrying
out his call from his Lord to prepare the way for his Lord and to proclaim the
Gospel of his Lord. What does he get for that? Prison. He gets punishment at
the hands of men who deserve more than he does to be in that prison cell.
Furthermore, how can he continue his calling of proclaiming the Gospel when
he’s limited to his cell?
How do you think John the Baptist’s state of well-being was at that
point? I hope I never end up in prison, but if I do I don’t imagine I will feel
like my well-being matches what it is when I have a life free to enjoy it
freely. Whatever trials and difficulties you are experiencing, do they compare
with what John the Baptist experienced? I’m guessing you’re like me and you’d
just as soon not have to experience what he did. For another example, on this
day in this nation it would be hard to imagine feeling worse than those who
lost their children and loved ones in the horrific shooting in Connecticut. But
even so, this is not the point. God the Holy Spirit didn’t put that little part
in there about John the Baptist being in prison so that we could compare our
troubles with his and then come to the conclusion that we may have it bad, but
at least we don’t have it that bad. Comparing yourself with others is a road
that will only lead you to finding others who are either better or worse off
than you are.
What your Lord does is exactly what He did for John. Whether you find
yourself in prison or in a fight for your life against cancer or can’t stand
the pain you endure, whether it’s physical or emotional, what your Lord is
telling you is something that actually might make you feel worse. The reason that
is is because of our penchant for viewing things circumstantially and conditional.
I have joy because everything’s going great! Or, how can I have joy when things
are falling apart! This is the worst thing you can do, but we do it all the
time, don’t we?
Jesus teaches us straight out that we are in a state of well-being.
There are no conditions. There are no circumstances under which this is not
true for you. It’s, Rejoice!, because you have cause for joy. You are a people
of joy. Note that Jesus never says anything about feelings. He doesn’t even say
anything about circumstances. In fact, that’s the whole key to this, He doesn’t
point us to anything within us. Rather, He points us to Himself.
How could John rightly believe that he was in a state of well-being
when he was locked up in a cell? As they soon after led him to the chopping
block where they severed his head from himself, how could he think that God had
him in His care? Because, as Jesus responded to John’s question, He, Jesus, was
the One. What was it that John had been doing all that time before they threw
his pink little body into prison? Pointing to the One. Proclaiming the Christ.
Preparing the way for the Messiah, the Savior. That’s what John had been doing.
That’s what it was all about. It never was about John. It never was about his
feelings, or his circumstances, or the conditions he would have liked to place
on his standard of living or his general assessment of his well-being.
No, it was, and was always, about Christ his Lord. It was always about
the fact that John, in prison and out, in good times and bad, in moments of
happiness and moments of sadness and despondency, was in fact in a state of
well-being. In other words, he had true joy. It all stemmed from God’s grace,
and gave him hope, and he was a person of joy. One who could rejoice in all
circumstances.
That’s the true beauty of joy and rejoicing. You can do it even when
you don’t feel like it. You have joy even when it seems there’s no cause for
it. Since it’s not based on your feelings or your circumstances, you can know
that you have true joy because it’s something that is entirely from and of your
Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s really quite amazing how Jesus preaches a sermon. When you consider
that preaching the Gospel is always preaching Christ and the salvation that is
in Him alone it’s fascinating to see how Jesus Himself does it. What does He
first do? He says very simply in response to John’s question, which is, “Are
you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”, “Well, John, what
am I doing? The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are
cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good
news preached to them.” In other words, Yes. Yes, I’m the one. So there you see
how Jesus preaches the Gospel, in the same way every Christian preacher must do
it, by preaching Christ.
But then it gets interesting. He then goes on to talk to the people
about John. One moment He was proclaiming Himself, and so far so good. But then
He goes into a thing about John the Baptist. Wasn’t John the one who was
supposed to be proclaiming Christ? And now Jesus is pointing the people to
John? But Jesus is the true genius preacher, never preaching anyone but Himself.
Whereas every preacher falls short at times, Jesus is the one who always
focuses us exactly where our sights need to be set and always proclaims exactly
what we need to hear. And what is that? Him. Jesus. The Savior, God in the
flesh; the one who came to go to the cross.
So is Jesus really pointing people to John here? No. He’s pointing
people to Himself. When He brings up the stuff about John it’s in order to show
us who God is and how He works. Namely, God promised the Savior. God promised
He would send His messenger before Him. When He is pointing to John, then, as
this very messenger He’s not pointing us to John at all. He’s pointing us to
Himself. In Him, and only in Him, is true joy. In Him, and in Him alone, is our
reason for rejoicing.
Think about what you are doing when you look at your circumstances and
do not see cause for joy or when you place conditions on your ability to
rejoice. You are looking at things other than the one thing you ought to be
looking at, and that is Christ. That is what He Himself does for you—He gives
you Himself, He gives you true joy, He makes you a person who is a person of
joy.
It never was about John at all. And it is never about you either. It is,
and is always, about Christ. Because if it’s about you, well, then, yes,
there’s not always cause for joy because you will always find reason for lack
of joy. But if it is always about Christ there is reason for joy and rejoicing.
He is the one whose conditions and circumstances turned dramatically to
the point where prison would have been a summer home compared to His suffering
on the cross. All the sin and guilt of every person was laid upon Him. All the
wrath of God against sinners was brought upon Him. The eternal punishment every
person deserves was dealt Him. All our suffering and sadness is met in the
suffering of Christ on the cross.
This is the heart of the Gospel, for it is the heart of Christ. It is simply
an unfathomable fact that He considered going to the cross a joy. He rejoiced
in His Heavenly Father’s will to go this path. And that, dear friends, is why
we have true joy. Amen.
SDG
No comments:
Post a Comment