Joy: to the world.

 

Tonight's sunset was a spectacular 30 minute show. I caught the last hurrah, after narrowly avoiding several lamp posts on the afternoon dog walk, looking at the sky and grinning like a fool instead of looking where I was going.

Imagine watching a sunset that lasted 24 hours. Imagine watching every sunset, from every vantage point on earth, all those colours, all that spectacular light. Imagine experiencing them all at the same time. 

Imagine watching every sunset, on every planet in the universe, from every possible vantage point, all at the same time, all the time. And multiply that by every other joy its possible to have. That is the inner life of God. Yes there is all the other stuff and all the suffering and everything else that wounds him and breaks his heart. But there is joy. 

Proverbs 8:30-31 'I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in His presence, rejoicing in His whole world and delighting in humanity'. This is the summary of Jesus life before he became incarnate. Constant overflowing joy. So when he is born, it is literally 'joy to the world'. At the end of his life Jesus tells his followers that he's told them all the things he has 'so that my joy may be in you and so that your joy may be complete' (John 15). He then faces and endures torture and death 'for the joy set before him' (Hebrews 12:2)

Jesus is joy to the world. The life of a follower of Jesus is 'righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit' (Romans 14:17). Paul prays that all Christians would be filled with 'all joy and peace' and would 'rejoice, again rejoice!' (Philippians 4). The God who 'rejoices over you with singing' finds an echo in the hearts of His children. 

God is love. Jesus is joy. Psalm 23 pictures even the death-overshadowed pilgrim, in the presence of their enemies, feasting on God's overflowing goodness . Like Jesus, is it possible to be 'filled with delight day after day', rejoicing in God's presence, in God's creation, in God's people? Whether in the joy of new birth or the agony of a cross?