“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!”
John 15:9-11 NLT
Most people in our secular societies pursue happiness in hedonistic ways. Through holidays or days out. Through evenings spent with friends. Through the darker ways of alcohol, drugs or sex. But happiness isn’t joy, at least in the way Jesus meant. Jesus told us of the relationship between being obedient to His commandments and with the experience of joy. In the book of Acts we read about the enigma of Paul and Silas in a Philippian jail, backs bruised, feet in the stocks, but able to praise God full of joy because their punishment had come from the obedience of doing God’s will. We can read this story in Acts 16. No happiness there but unlimited joy.
There is an old song based on Isaiah 35:10, “Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return. They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness”. The Jewish nation went through many trials in Old Testament times and here we have a picture of the joy, everlasting joy, that would result when God’s people were restored to Jerusalem. And we remember the prophecy of the events of the first Palm Sunday, from Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt“. Joy in the Old Testament accompanied a national event that elevated the people above their circumstance and fulfilled their dreams and hopes. Their subsistence and hard way of life was still there, but joy was always there as well, although often just out of reach and only a dream.
We pilgrims read what Jesus said to His disciples about being obedient to His commandments and remaining in His love, and wonder what that means for us in our 21st Century societies. It is hard going the Jesus way, being obedient to His commands, particularly as so many of them are counter-cultural, in the extreme in some cases. What a difference it would make to world peace if everyone prayed for their enemies, rather than step up their “defence” spending. What a difference it would make if marriage vows were totally honoured until death parted a husband and wife. What would the media report on if there was no crime? But as we stay close to Jesus and keep His commands, we are in fact helping to hold back the forces of darkness and, in the process, experiencing the joy that can only come from Him.
Dear God of Joy. We worship and thank You today. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 