December 18, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY: JOY

“Those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them while sorrow and sighing will flee away. ‘I, even I, [says the Lord] am He who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass, that you forget the Lord  your Maker…?’” (Isaiah 51.11-13a)

“Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.” (Revelation 2.19)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD during the Third Week of Advent 2024:

There is no scripture reference to answer the question I am led to consider as I read Isaiah 51.11-13+. It isn’t a question so much as it is one of those thoughts which entered into my mind and my spirit. I know, my mother told me, too, “You don’t have to say everything that goes into your head.” Yet, it is not unbiblical or heretical to consider this question nor ask it of you. “How did Jesus react, say and do, when God lifted Him out of death and back into life?” There is no scriptural testimony to this effect because there were no eyewitnesses of that moment. I have often wondered, “If the disciples were sleeping, near to or distant from Jesus, when He went off to pray in the Garden, how do we know what Jesus prayed?” Jesus Himself may have told the surviving disciples of those hours upon His forty day sojourn with them following His resurrection. Perhaps the Holy Spirit revealed it to the gospel writers to bring an understanding to Jesus’ questioning of them “Can you not tarry with Me for even one hour? Stay alert which I go again to pray.” Regardless of the answer to that question and thought, we do not have the same witness, testimony or revelation for the scenario which came into my thinking as I read the scripture and paused to take it in. Yet, it so interests me in light of the witness of God’s Word to Isaiah. When the Sabbath was over and twenty-four hours had elapsed from “Good Friday” sundown to sundown on Saturday, what were Jesus’ first thoughts, words and actions. It isn’t sacrilege to wonder about it or even to say it (or write) in this moment, so I am.

Jesus put His full faith in God, His Father in Heaven. Jesus, knowing everything concerning His choice to honor God’s desire to redeem His people from the pit of death, wrestled with the question of it in the Garden. There was that moment of truth when the Son of God, who also was the Son of Man, faced the reality of His decision to love both God and humanity so much that sacrificial death, even death on the cross, was the foregone conclusion. Yet, it wasn’t necessarily the only conclusion or else Jesus would not have prayed “If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not My will but Yours be done.” There was a possibility of another way. Only “one” way, however, would complete the love Jesus had for God and humanity. Only one “way, truth and life” would make it possible for the desire of reconciliation to be effected and manifested in all of creation. Only ONE! God knew it. Jesus knew. The angels knew it. Even Satan, the cast out Lucifer who was a “star who fell from Heaven” (Isaiah 14.12), knew it. He wished he didn’t. The truth of that moment ended forever his hope of being outside of God’s will. Jesus was the conclusion, is the conclusion and will forever be the conclusion of Satan’s reign of terror. His ultimate end comes not in eternal terror but eternal torment. Because of Jesus’ faithfulness and trust in God, Satan and those who choose to follow after him, will only know “that place where God is not.” Despite the efforts to the contrary of many who are alive today to live as if there is no God or to live as if God has no say in their lives, their desire cannot be known this side of that Final Judgment. Just because one says “there is no God” does not mean “there is no God.” God has fully promised and Jesus affirmed that with His disciples (which includes us as mighty ones of God in Jesus’ name), “I AM with you always to the close of the age.” It is the reality of the name which the angels declared defined Jesus’ presence on earth as “Immanuel, God with us.” Until that moment in time, God is with us, near us, around us, in us and for us. The day will come when God will be “against” us, the us being those who refuse to be on the Lord’s side. For a moment, Jesus experienced the despair and the depth of that place. There on the cross, Jesus cried out in a loud voice as the shroud of eternal and final death crept over Him, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” which translated declares Jesus wrestling with “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” In that moment, we may be thrust back to the words given to Isaiah in chapter 9, “Those who dwelt in darkness, a light has come to them.” What it must be like to be in utter darkness of the soul and not just of the body. I don’t want to know it and only Jesus could survive it. Jesus prayed the utter despair out loud and with a cry breathed His last. (Mark 15.34f) We know how others heard it, “It is finished. It is done.” The ultimate resignation and defiant act of righteousness…for our sake and for the glory of God. Oh, mighty ones of God, do not think for a moment that God was not moved. He was. He was moved by the faith and faithfulness of His only begotten Son. All others were created by His Hand. Jesus of Nazareth, the babe born of Mary, was different and this death impacted God as no other. God trusted His own reality of love for our sake. In that moment, Jesus truly died. But, we know that the darkness could not overcome the light! And when is it the darkest? Just before the dawn.

So, I ask you, mighty ones of God, when the dawn broke for Jesus what must have been His first thought, first word and first action? To me, whatever they were, they could only be described as an “inexpressible joy.” Somehow, Peter knew it. I believe that Jesus must have shared it with him during those forty days. Why Peter? We can read John 21 and understand why? Jesus confronted Peter’s grief for denying Jesus three times with the opportunity to accept Him three times. In Peter’s darkness there was still a glimmer of light ever so faint. We do not know what Jesus’ last words were to Peter before that meeting at the seaside. I have a distinct feeling there was a sense of farewell. And maybe it was but there was no closure. Peter had the chance to repent and lament with Jesus but he didn’t. Jesus couldn’t leave it that way. It might explain Peter’s fervent response to the realization that it was Jesus standing on the beach that morning. He lept out of the boat nearly walking on water to get to Jesus. Maybe this is the way Peter felt every time he saw the resurrected Jesus. But this time was different. Was it different, too, for Jesus when His eyes opened to find Himself wrapped in graveclothes? Was it different when His Sabbath rest was over and He came to the realization that God had liberated Him from death’s darkness with a new day, a new week and new reality. Honestly, Jesus had gone where no man had gone before and seen death as no one had ever experienced before. What did Jesus’ “inexpressible joy” sound like, look like, feel like? Fortunately, because of what Jesus did to save us from the penalty of our sins, we will never have to know the depth but only the height. Sadly, because of what Jesus did and many refuse to accept Him as “the way, the truth and the life” they will never know the height but only the depth. This is the word I found in Isaiah 51 and reach out to grasp “what the Lord has done.” This is the effect, I believe Advent is supposed to have for us so that on “Christmas” morning we wrestle with that “inexpressible joy.” It will not come with presents under the tree, that proverbial visit of Sender Klaus or the family gathering around the table. It can only come when we stop and look at the star at the top of the tree and know it still leads us to the Promised Land of redemption where Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. Hallelujah!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit in order that others be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind so we would know we are Your people and You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.