Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
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A few years ago I went to a friend’s ordination to the priesthood at the Cathedral in New York. It was 2019. I’m sure you remember that four-year period we were in the middle of. When it came time for the sermon, the preacher gave a list of all the terrible things going on in the world. And when the list was done, so was the sermon. No Jesus. No God. No encouragement about what it means to be a Christian or a priest in difficult times. I was speechless.
Even more astonishing to me was the response from my fellow clergy. In the sacristy after the service, everyone around me was talking about what a powerful sermon it had been. I wanted to shout, “But where was the good news?” I was put in mind of Friedrich Nietzsche’s great critique of Christianity summed up in the words he attributes to Zarathustra: “They would have to sing better songs to me that I might believe in their Redeemer: his disciples would have to look more redeemed!”
There was a lot of bad news at that time. Arguably there is even more bad news today. But we Christians are called to preach, not the bad news, but the good news. We are called to proclaim the challenging message that even here and now, in the midst of sorrow and devastation, genocide and war, political upheaval and climatic collapse—even here and now Jesus Christ is risen. When the news gets worse and worse, our need to proclaim and model the joy of the resurrection is even more paramount.
Joy is meant to be the characteristic state of the redeemed Christian. But, like its counterpart gratitude, it is hard to maintain, particularly when we believe that our joy is a product of our own action rather than a gift of the Spirit enlivening us. Of course we will be dour when we think the salvation of the world is a matter solely of political and social action and that action rests entirely on our shoulders.
This morning’s gospel reading gives us a section of what we call the High Priestly Prayer or Jesus’ Farewell Discourse. I recently heard someone set the scene thus. Jesus is having a meal with his friends. He knows it will be the last time they are all together like this, and he just can’t bear to part with them, so much does he love them. So he keeps finding other things he needs to tell them. He is doing his best to equip them for the days and years ahead. And maybe he’s also having a little trouble letting go. I imagine we’ve all be there.
And yet, long though it may be, this prayer of love and inspiration contains some of the most exquisitely beautiful passages in Scripture. At the heart of this morning’s passage is the verse “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.”
This is what Jesus is up to: praying—interceding with his Father—so that his joy made be made complete, whole, total in us. Here is the first clue to sustaining the joy of the redeemed. It is not our joy. It is God’s joy, initiated by Jesus, and made full and complete in the Holy Spirit dwelling within and among us.
We often use joy as a synonym for happiness. But lightness of spirit, giddiness, being carefree—these are all too anemic to be called joy. Joy is something deeper, stronger, more profound. It is a gift of the Spirit, equal parts acceptance, hope, and love.
Christian Wiman points out that joy must contain sorrow. In fact, he calls sorrow “the seams of ore that burn darkly and beautifully in the midst of joy, and […] make joy the complete experience that it is.” (My Bright Abyss, p. 19) Joy is not a denial of reality, but an embracing of it, a drinking of reality to the dregs.
Joy understands the limitations of our knowledge and trusts that God is working out God’s purpose in the world and in our own hearts, whatever the outward appearance. Joy is a thing of the Cross as much as of the Resurrection.
I’m always surprised at quickly we move from the sadness and somberness of Good Friday into the celebration of Easter. That certainly doesn’t seem to have been the disciples’ experience, if we read the scriptures closely. They were afraid. They were perplexed. They were confused and astonished. So lost are they, that they often don’t recognize Jesus when he appears to them. Instead, their hearts burn strangely within them. We can only celebrate Easter morning because we know the end of the story, or we think we do.
More and more, though, the world seems like that first Easter morning. We have seen the crucifixion of our hopes and loves. We have even laid some of them to rest. And now we’ve come to visit them and found an empty cave and a pile of clothes. We know that something has happened, something immense, something shattering. But what?
I call to mind a section of Christine Lore Webber’s poem “Mother Wisdom Speaks”:
Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.
I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you.
I will do this for the space that you will be.
I will do this because you must be large.
A passage.
People will find their way through you.
Sometimes joy looks like being hollowed out like a cave. Sometimes joy looks like allowing the darkness to make its home in us, so that the lines between the light and the dark soften, and we come to know more clearly the unity of all things, to bear that unity in our bodies. Are we willing to be bearers of joy in broken world? Are we are willing to look at the wreck of this world and see not only the rubble but the beauty?
Jesus prays for his joy to be made complete in us. Having ascended into heaven so that, as the letter to the Ephesians put it, he might fill all things, it falls to us to complete God’s joy. Without us, the joy, hope, and love that God means to fill the whole creation is incomplete. Take that in for a moment. God chooses to be incomplete without you and me. And that also means that the world is incomplete without our joy.
If we are shy or guilty about being persons of joy, then why in the world are we Christians? We are people who not only believe but know in the flesh of our bodies that Jesus Christ is risen. The world needs this joy. If we are not to bear it, then who will?
Without joy, we cannot sing the song of the Redeemed. It may be frightening to live in joy when the world prefers chaos. We may feel guilty or shy. But, to quote Rebecca Solnit, “Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.”
Even more so for us Christians. Joy is our birthright. So call the banners. Step out of the shadows and join hands. Let the insurrection of the Redeemed begin! Amen.
