My senior year at UNC, my IV staff worker Rachelle (then Smith, now McClintock) and I did a Bible study on the word 'joy' as it was used in the New Testament We were intending to write a book on it. We never quite got that far, but just looking at the Scriptures was pretty illuminating.
The word joy is most often used in the Scriptures in the context of community. In passage after passage, joy and relationships were linked arm-in-arm.
Perhaps this should not be surprising. Two months ago I posted a snippet from a talk I gave a conference where we were talking about God being a 'Being-In-Relationship'--Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God is not a monolithic piece of granite. He is dynamic, ongoing, interactive Persons--the most Real Persons ever. The 'joy of the Lord' is the gladness and happiness that God has in being God. God delights to be who He is. The Father delights in the Son, the Son delights in the Father, the Holy Spirit delights to be the result of this love relationship.
And so when we are in holy and good community, where true sharing, authenticity, self-giving, and genuine delight in another is happening we too get to experience something of joy--the joy of the Lord in microcosm.
Is it any wonder that our world is so joyless? Is there any greater sadness than the fact that our Christian communities fall so far short of this type of relating and therefore lack the joy available to us?
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