As we go through life, due to varying circumstances and situations we experience the shifting of emotions. Even a singular occasion can be bittersweet in the sense of there being both a sad and a joyful element associated with it. Do we not even approach our participation together in the Lord’s Supper in this way as we ponder the cruelty our Lord endured on our behalf but then also joyfully remember the salvation that is ours because His death is the adequate atonement for our sins and in Him is the steadfast hope of eternal life?
As Jesus encouraged His disciples prior to His arrest in the garden, He knew the sorrow they would experience, but He also knew they would not be left there. Therefore He said. . .
“(20) Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. (21) When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. (22) So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:20-22 ESV)
As the leaders would rejoice over their seeming victory in getting Jesus out of the way, that rejoicing would actually be short lived as would be the sorrow of the disciples. The disciples would see Jesus again and they would be filled with a joy no one could take away; not even following His ascension. (Luke 24:52) The realities associated with the eternal Savior would give birth to joy that would leave all the sorrow experienced behind.
Though we live in a world where things come and go or are given and then taken away, we experience a shifting of emotions. However, when the basis of joy is shifted from the ethereal (the airy and insubstantial) to the eternal (i.e. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18) we are enabled to “rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16). Since Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) we can have a joy that remains the same! Because Jesus is eternal, the joy arising from faith centered in Him can be eternal! May we therefore shift our focus from the momentary to the constant found in the eternal Christ!
Have a great day EXPERIENCING ABIDING JOY IN JESUS!
Carl
