The little exercise I run through sometimes creates more disequilibrium than I intended. I start with the space I can see. Then I recall that I live in Vancouver, in Canada, in North America, on planet Earth, in this solar system, in this galaxy, and then… Well you can work it out too. The ever expanding universe. I’m in it. I’m in it with you.
Does God really have plans and purposes in which we can reside and understand ourselves in this cosmos and in our community? Do these plans even in spaces of enormous injustice and struggle include joy in this life? The Gospel of Jesus says, “Yes!” Hebrews 12:1-2 suggests that Jesus lived with joy as a reality He knew He could enter.
The Gospel pulls my head out of the clouds. The Gospel of Jesus offers a grounded view of the meeting of heaven and earth and reveals our participation in a great cosmic struggle in which the glory of God will prevail. We are all living some form of life. But it may not be the real life that God intended for us. Jesus extends an invitation to real life now — knowing God and following Him. Fatalism is a joy-killer. Fatalism robs of us agency. Suggests that we cannot change. Fatalism says, “You are stuck and hopeless.” It sets us in this generation without meaning beyond the desires of our bodies. Fatalism tells we have no choice. Who would want that? Yet, fatalism can be very persuasive.
How can fatalism can be set aside? Such meaninglessness and its despair must give way to the glory of being loved by the Creator of it all who is revealing Himself in it all, just as the night gives way to the morning.
As we read the life and relationships of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we must take note of the many times Jesus comes to intersections in which His “steps,” His “way,” His “participation” in the Father’s work and life is tested, challenged, and flat out opposed. These challenges did not end with the “temptations” we famously attend to in Matthew 4 and Luke 4.
Jesus’s temptations were legion! Through it all Jesus did not depart from His Father’s work and way. He confesses (John 5:16-23, 30 NIV):
16So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”18For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.19Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.20For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.21For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.22Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,23that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him… 30By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
Jesus’ joy in relationship motivated Him and centred Him even as He parked Himself just inside the gates of Hell. The relationship to the Father and Jesus’ union with the Father is the source of His joy. And Jesus invites us into His life of joy (John 15:9-13, NIV):
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.10If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
So here’s why this matters to me so much. When I need a way to get my foggy head out of the clouds and the disequilibrium of the cosmos it comes down to this: Because I have been befriended and loved by Jesus, I now have neighbours and Jesus who are I am to treat as friends. I am to love them. Through the power of the crucified One raised from the dead, through the power of His Holy Spirit, I am to love.
The race marked out for me is in this space, with these people, and in the communion of God. The race marked out for me and for you, though they are different in so many is ways are similar in this way: it is meant to be full of love and punctuated with joy.
To be loved by Jesus is to enter into His new creation.
To pray is to love and to enter into His communion.
To love even in a struggle of life and death is to enter into the promise of His joy.
And His joy is real.