Joy in the face of the unthinkable

BOX SCORE
Element	Current	Std. Range	Trend
Hemoglobin	11	13-17	v
Platelets	55	140-375	^
ANC	1800	1800-8300	v

Have you ever been in a situation where someone seems to be amazed by something you've done...or endured? It's pretty uncomfortable. From time to time someone says to me something like, "I don't know how you manage to go through what you are going through and not be discouraged. I couldn't do it." In some cases, I think to myself, "Huh?? This guy has much harder things to deal with than I have." 

I have come to realize that we all have some kind of challenge to deal with. None of them is minor. A challenge is a challenge. Its relative importance, I believe, can only be measured against some other challenge that same person has faced. Comparing my troubles with yours is 1) an exercise in futility, 2) irrelevant. After all, what difference would it make if we could somehow create an absolute scale of challenges and then peg ourselves and/or our friends on that scale. Would it make the challenge go away? I don't think so. If anything it might lead to more bickering. 

"My challenge is worse than yours, and if you disagree, I'm not going to invite you to my birthday party." 

Anyway, as always, there is some value in everything. I have spent some time thinking about this business, and I have some opinions about it. (I know; you're shocked, right?) Being a student of human behavior and motivations, I have learned that as humans, we are averse to suffering. If we can't reduce our own, we will look for someone who, in our minds has more suffering, in the hope of feeling a little better about our own.

What we want is to medicate some pain in our lives. Often, it is something we don't even understand, unless we have delved into self confrontation. I am thinking that the type of comparisons I started writing about are probably motivated by a couple of factors. 

First, I think they are truly meant as an encouragement to someone whose challenge we perceive as grave and overwhelming, and second, I believe we do derive a sort of comfort out of thinking the other fellow's challenge is greater than our own. Let's face it, we are a competitive species, and we like to be a step ahead. If I see your challenge as greater than my own, I feel a little better that I am not in your shoes. 

In my case, I definitely have a health challenge to contend with, and yet overall if I had to characterize my outlook it is joyful. I don't think that is Pollyanna. It is rather the joy of knowing and being known by God. 

I am currently reading a book by John Piper titled "Seeing and Savoring Jesus."* Chapter four is titled "The Indestructible Joy." Piper's take on things is one I have not heard put into words before, but it definitely resonates with my spirit. He begins the chapter this way:

"If a lifeguard saves you from the undertow of the Atlantic Ocean, you don’t care if he is gloomy. It doesn’t matter what his mental state is when you are hugging your family on the beach. But with the salvation of Jesus, things are very different. Jesus does not save us for our family, but for himself. If he is gloomy our salvation will be sad. And that is no great salvation." (p. 35)

The love of Christ is unfathomable. I can't wrap my mind around the fact that Jesus suffered severe torture, humiliation, abandonment and an agonizing death on a Roman cross for the purpose of eradicating my sin. Piper goes on to write:

"Salvation is not mainly the forgiveness of sins, but mainly the fellowship of Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:9). Forgiveness gets everything out of the way so this can happen. If this fellowship is not all-satisfying, there is no great salvation. If Christ is gloomy or even calmly stoical eternity will be a long, long sigh." (p. 35)

There is an image of heaven that many of us share or have shared in the past. Picture this: everyone is sitting around in nighties on clouds playing harps for eternity. I think this image, which we see in cartoons and other naive depictions of heaven, is enough to make anyone question the idea of "going to heaven." It is probably the reason people sometimes say they'd rather go the other way, where eternity, in their imagination, will be one long season of unfettered debauchery...anything but sitting on a cloud in a nighty strumming a harp.

But the glory and grace of Jesus is that he is, and always will be indestructibly happy. I say it is his glory, because gloom is not glorious, And I say it it his grace, because the best thing he has to give us is his joy. “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. (John15:11; see also 17:13) It would not be fully gracious of Jesus simply to increase my joy to its final limit and then leave me short of his. My capacities for joy are very confined. So Christ not only offers himself as the divine object of my joy, but pours his capacity for joy into me, so that I can enjoy him with the very joy of God. This is glory, and this is grace. 

It is not glorious to be gloomy. Therefore Christ has never been gloomy. From eternity he has been the mirror of God’s infinite mirth. The Wisdom of God spoke these words in Proverbs 8:30, “Then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always.” The eternal Christ, God’s happy and equal agent in creation, was ever rejoicing before God and ever God’s delight. (Piper, pp. 35-36, emphasis mine)

I must say that without my Savior, I do not have the capacity for much joy, but in His presence, I can fully appreciate Him as "the mirror of God's infinite mirth." Another myth I have encountered is that God is a capricious tyrant, just waiting for us to step out of line, so He can pounce on us. Somehow, we have got things a little mixed up. When the Apostle Peter wrote "[he] prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour," (1Peter 5:8) he was not referring to God, but to "[our] adversary the devil."

In Hebrews 1:8-9 God speaks to the Son, not to the angels, with these astonishing words: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever…. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness: therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” Jesus Christ is the happiest being in the universe. (Piper, p. 36)

I find this description of Jesus very encouraging. If God is the source of "every good gift and every perfect gift" (James 1:17), then He is the author of mirth and joy and good humor. 

...in Acts 2:25-31 Peter interprets Psalm 16 to refer to Christ: “‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken: therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced…. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption...you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’” The glory of Christ is his infinite, eternal, indestructible gladness in the presence of God. (Piper, pp, 36-37)

Wow! Indestructible gladness. That is a different picture of eternity than the nighties and clouds and harps. Can you imagine a life filled with "indestructible gladness" that goes on forever? "... God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”(Revelation 7:17) This is beginning to sound better and better. 

But if it is not glorious to be gloomy, neither is it glorious to be glib. The carefree merriment of a ballroom gala and the irrepressible joy in a Russian gulag are not the same. One is trite, the other triumphant. One is glib, the other glorious. There is a pasted smile that has never known pain. And it does not make for a good pastor or a great Savior. But Christ is a great Savior.

Therefore, this man of indestructible joy was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death: remain here, and watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38). This “great high priest” is not unable to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, because he was tested in every way as a man like us (Hebrews 4:14-15). He wept with those who wept (John 11:35) and rejoiced with those who rejoiced (Luke 10:17, 21). He was hungry (Matthew 4:2), he was weary (John 4:6), he was forsaken (Matthew 26:56), betrayed (Matthew 26:45), whipped (Matthew 27:26), mocked (Matthew 27:31), and crucified (Matthew 27:35). (Piper, p. 37)

Unending jocularity or frivolity are not what Jesus is all about, but rather indestructible joy, even in the face of adversity. Good and evil coexist not in tolerance of each other but in tension with each other. Our minuscule minds really only can understand evil when it is contrasted with the good. Jesus said, "No one is good except God alone." (Mark 10:18) 

Indomitable joy does not mean that there is only joy. Was he [Jesus] then divided, torn between joy and sorrow? Can an infinitely glorious soul be troubled? Yes, troubled, but not torn and disunited. Christ was complex, but he was not confused. There were divergent notes in the music of his soul, but the result was a symphony. (Piper, pp. 37-38, bracketed material mine)

Indestructible joy can be observed "...looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2, emphasis added). What was that joy that led Jesus to endure what He did? It was the joy of family, the family of God, including those of us who are God's adopted sons and daughters. He did it so He could be with us...you and me!! You talk about indestructible joy!

And what was that all-sustaining gladness? It was the gladness of receiving worship from those he died to make glad in God. The Good Shepherd rejoices over one lost sheep (Matthew 18:13). How much more over countless armies of the ransomed! 

Is there a lesson here for how we should suffer? Have you ever noticed that we are not only to imitate the Lord’s suffering, but the Lord’s joy in it? Paul said to the Thessalonians, “You became imitators… of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). It was the joy of the Lord in affliction that filled this young church.(Piper, p. 38, emphasis added)

And that explains why the Apostle Paul wrote:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. ⁵ Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; ⁶ do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7, emphasis added)

And that is also why I am filled with joy even in the face of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Get to know the happiest being in the universe. He has joy for you even in the face of unthinkable challenges. 

 

   

* Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ; Piper, John; Crossway Books; Copyright 2004; Chapter 4, “The Indestructible Joy”