“The Journey of Joy” (Isaiah 35)

As I was preparing to preach this week, I considered giving my sermon the title “Getting Serious About Joy”. Then I thought better of it and came up with “Joy Is No Laughing Matter”. All joking aside, were you aware that joy is currently the subject of a high-level academic examination? Nine years ago the Templeton Foundation awarded Yale University a $4.2 million grant to embark on an intensive and wide-ranging multi-year study under the banner “The Theology of Joy and the Good Life”. Since then the project has engaged some top scholars and religious leaders from around the world.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve spent more time than I should have reading articles and listening to interviews with some of those individuals. Here is a quote from one of today’s leading New Testament experts, Tom Wright: “Joy … has everything to do with God rescuing his people… when God finally does something that people have been waiting for… Joy is not just an emotion, but a whole way of looking at the world…” Wright also laments, “There is a serious lack of joy in our society today…,” a lack which he attributes to what he calls “the failure of the modernist dream”.

Another interviewee was renowned German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. When asked, “How do the pursuit of happiness, fun and optimism differ from joy?” this was his reply: “Fun is superficial. It must be repeated again and again. You cannot make yourself joyful—that would be self-satisfaction. Joy is unexpected. It comes as a gift. Joy in the end wins.”

If you’ve got the time, I commend those interviews to you. You can find them, along with a host of others, on YouTube. But this morning our focus is not on theologians and scholars, as learned and helpful as they may be. It is on that wonderful passage that we have just read from Isaiah 35.

Karen and I have a lovely Middle Eastern restaurant that we enjoy eating at from time to time. There is one particular dish on their menu that they feature as “bursting with flavour”—and it happens to be my absolute favourite. Well, perhaps you’ve noticed already that this morning’s verses from Isaiah are bursting with joy. So let’s turn to Isaiah 35 for the next few minutes and see what God has to teach us about joy through this great Old Testament prophet.

First, and just to get our historical bearings, let me fill in some background to say that Isaiah was writing at a critical time. The year was 701 bc, and the seemingly unstoppable forces of the Assyrian empire had overrun pretty well the whole of the little kingdom of Judah. The once fertile vineyards and fields that graced its hills and valleys were a scorched wilderness, its towns and villages heaps of smouldering rubble. Now those armies stood at the very gates of Jerusalem. I can only imagine the sense of doom and desolation that must have gripped the hearts of its people.

The joy of anticipation

Into the midst of this scene comes the prophet, with a message not of doom but of hope, words not of grim despair but of exuberant joy. So let’s turn to chapter 35 and let’s take a moment to count the number of times the prophet uses the word “joy”:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad (1);
    the desert shall rejoice (2) and blossom like the crocus;
it shall blossom abundantly
    and rejoice (3) with joy (4) and singing.

Do you think Isaiah was getting his message across? It’s a good thing that the Hebrew of the Old Testament was a language rich in words for joy, because even with these four, Isaiah had not exhausted its possibilities. When we read farther along, we will see that he would still have three more to come before the chapter concludes.

Now the joy that Isaiah was writing about in these opening verses is what I would describe as the joy of anticipation. Certainly there was nothing in their current circumstances that Isaiah or his hearers could be happy about. Think of the situation in Israel and Gaza today (or Sudan or Burma or Ukraine for that matter) and you’ll have something of a picture of what the good citizens of Jerusalem were facing in Isaiah’s day. All they could feel was a sense of doom as the Assyrian armies advanced unrelentingly upon them, right up to their very gates.

But Isaiah bids them look not around but ahead. His goal was to help them see that while their present circumstances might be grim (to say the least!), there was a future that God was preparing for them that was nothing less than glorious.

Was Isaiah being excessively optimistic? Perhaps as far as the immediate future was concerned, yes. But Isaiah had his eyes set on a longer outlook—on God’s design for a glorious new heaven and earth. And this is the perspective that we find again and again in the New Testament too. Think of these words from the apostle Paul:

The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. … And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God! (Romans 8:19)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! (echoes the apostle Peter) According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you… Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory… (1 Peter 1:6-9)

Surely this joy of anticipation is what Advent is all about, as we look forward with patriarchs and prophets and with Mary and Joseph to the coming of the Christ child—and even more as we await that day when Jesus will come again in his glorious majesty to claim all creation as his own.

The joy of accompaniment

But our joy lies not only in our anticipation of the future. It is also something that God desires us to experience in the present. And I want to affirm that it is a joy in which we can share even in the direst of circumstances.

Fortunately for the people of Isaiah’s day, tragedy was averted. The Assyrian armies were suddenly and mysteriously struck down overnight and forced to withdraw. (Isaiah reveals it was the work of an angel.) But little more than a century later the massive stone walls of Jerusalem would be breached and its thick wooden gates would succumb to the battering ram.

Those who survived the onslaught would be led out in chains to serve as slaves in the Babylonian Empire. Psalm 137 gives plaintive expression to the desolation that gripped the hearts of those exiles:

By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion…
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
    in a foreign land? (Psalm 137:1,4)

But there were those like Esther and Daniel and others, who would not surrender to their outward circumstances. They remembered the promise that the Lord had made to Joshua centuries before: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5) Even in the face of tragedy and adversity, they held firm to that conviction and to the God of promise.

In the New Testament, Jesus’ followers were increasingly burdened by the dark forces that brooded around them as they gathered in the upper room. Jesus recognized the heaviness that was weighing down on them and said, “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 16:22)

A little story that has helped to make this real for me was told by Stephen Neill, a missionary who served in India eighty years ago. Here is what he wrote:

Some years ago the Christians of a village in India came to me and said “Our well is already dry, and there is no hope of rain for four months. What shall we do?” I said, “I think there is water deeper down; try boring a shaft in the middle of your well.” For six days they worked, and nothing came. The seventh, they came to me radiant with joy and said, “There is water in the well to the height of two men!” They had pierced the hard rock, and forty feet down they had found the hidden stream. Since that day the well has never gone dry. In the hottest weather, when everything all round is scorched and dry, it is always surrounded by a brilliant strip of green. The water was there all the time. When they went deep enough, they found it, and then their hearts were filled with joy.[1]

I don’t want to underestimate the pain and sorrow experienced by those captive people of Judah during their decades of captivity under the Babylonians. Yet I do believe that they survived their enslavement because beneath the adversity and all the suffering and confusion of their exile, there was still for many of them a quiet joy. It was not like the cheers you hear in a football stadium or a hockey arena. But it was grounded in the deep and unshakeable conviction that God, who had led them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, was with them still—even in their suffering—and that he would never let them go. And so it is that the apostle Paul’s words hold for us today as it held for them: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)

The joy of arriving

But there yet remained a much greater joy that Isaiah looked forward to. It would be the joy that coursed through the people’s hearts on the day that they finally were permitted to resettle Jerusalem after a captivity of more than fifty years. And it was looking ahead to that event that Isaiah took the opportunity to use his two final words for joy:

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain gladness and joy,  
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Now there is something about this third joy that marks it out from the other two. In fact it elevates it to a whole new level. And that is because the joy of their celebration is not just their own. It is the joy of God.

It is the joy that Jesus spoke about at the conclusion of the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Do you remember the shepherd’s words when he returned to the fold? “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Or how about the woman after she finds her lost coin? Jesus tells us, “She calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’” (Luke 15:6,9)

Most movingly of all, it is the joy of the father in the parable of the prodigal son. No doubt there was joy in the heart of the son as he caught sight of his father waiting for him. But his joy did not even begin to compare with that of his father—a joy within him that was such that he ran down the road and embraced him and kissed him; a joy that was such that he put a robe on his back and a ring on his finger and called for a great celebration. (I must admit I always feel a bit for the fattened calf at this point!) But then do you remember his words when the older son complained? “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:32)

So it is that this Advent season calls you and me not only to look forward to Christmas and to the celebration of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. It calls us to look farther ahead, to that day when we will join our voices with those of all the redeemed to sing,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory…”
(Revelation 19:6-7a)

And we will stand before the Father to hear his welcome voice, “Well done, good and faithful servant… Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:23) And you and I will be joining in nothing less than the joy of God.

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[1]     The Christian Character, 35

“Lost and Found” (Luke 15:11-32)

 

One of my greatest delights in the church where I last served in Minnesota was to be part of a group of men who met faithfully every Wednesday morning for prayer, followed each week by coffee and conversation. Both the prayer and the conversation could be pretty free ranging at times. But I have to tell you that over the years that group was a spiritual lifeline for me.

One of the wonderful surprises for me in coming to All Nations five years ago was to discover that there was a similar group here—at least until covid struck. It even met on Wednesday mornings. One of the disciplines we have followed as a group has been to read chapter by chapter through a book that focuses on some aspect of Christian living.

A couple of years ago that book was a slim volume by the late Roman Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, entitled The Return of the Prodigal Son. In the introduction Nouwen tells how he went to the Hermitage, the world-renowned art museum in St Petersburg founded more than 250 years ago by Catherine the Great.

There Nouwen found a comfortable chair and planted himself directly in front of Rembrandt’s famous painting of The Return of the Prodigal Son. Before he knew it, more than two hours had elapsed. After a short break for coffee and conversation with the head of the museum’s restoration department, he returned for another hour until a guard and one of the cleaning ladies silently made it clear that closing time was upon him.

During those hours Nouwen carefully examined and meditated upon each of the figures in Rembrandt’s masterpiece, beginning with the younger son, then moving to the elder son, and finally the father. We don’t have the hours this morning that were at Henri Nouwen’s disposal in the Hermitage. It is a temptation to allow our familiarity with Jesus’ parable to cause us to skim though it quickly. But for the next few minutes I do want us to take some time to meditate and focus our thoughts on the three principal figures in Jesus’ beloved parable.

The Prodigal Son: Repentance

Let’s start with the son. To begin with, we need to remember that this story follows directly on from two others that Jesus had just told, about a lost sheep and a lost coin. As with the stories of the coin and the sheep, the parable of the prodigal son is also about being lost. But with the son there is a difference. The sheep and the coin were lost through no fault of their own. The sheep had been so busy munching on its own little patch of grass that it hadn’t noticed when the others had been herded back into their paddock for the night. And we would be silly to blame the coin for having been mislaid or dropped or whatever caused it to be missing from the woman’s purse.

But the case of the son stands apart. His lostness was not something that just happened to him. Rather, it was the direct result of his own rebellion and self-centredness. His demand to receive his share of the family estate amounted to treating his father as though the old man had already died. It was an act of consummate disregard for the feelings and the welfare of others. It is likely that his father’s assets were tied up in the form of land and livestock. Was the son really expecting his father to liquidate them and live on just a share of his income for the rest of his life?

Jesus doesn’t bother to delve into details like that or to psychologize. He didn’t need to. His listeners would have been filled with indignation at the brazenness of the son’s demand. And when the son ends up among the pigs longing to eat their slop, I can imagine them muttering under their breath, “Serves him right, the selfish twit!”

Indeed there would have been a certain justice to it if the story just ended there. The camera fades off into the distance with the son lying in rags in the filth of the pigs. But the son has a change of heart. Our Bibles say he came to his senses. Jesus’ words quite literally are, “He came to himself.” It seems to me that perhaps for the first time in his life the son was able to stand outside himself. He began to see himself objectively for the selfish, heedless good-for-nothing that he was.

(And here I can’t help but be reminded of those famous lines from Robbie Burns:

Oh, would some Power the giftie gie us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us.)

However, if repentance is to be genuine, there needs to be more to it than that. It is not just a matter of gaining a new perspective. It is a change of heart and life. As Pastor Dave made very clear in his sermon last week (and here I quote): “Repentance is both remorse and changing our lives… Remorse is feeling badly for what we did … seeing things the way the offended person sees things. But repentance means that then we need to turn away from what we did. Remorse isn’t enough… We need to change.”

So it was that with a heart made heavy by the realization of his own waywardness and the hurt he had caused, the son swallowed whatever pride he still had left and began the journey home.

The Waiting Father: Reconciliation

At this point Jesus shifts the scene back to the family homestead. There we see the father, no doubt appearing somewhat older and wearier through the loss of his son. Perhaps he is a little stooped and frail. We can imagine him at dawn getting up and gazing with sadness towards the horizon where he had last seen the son’s departing figure.

Imagine his surprise one morning when far in the distance he spots a figure that looks hauntingly familiar. Can it be? Are his aging eyes playing tricks on him? But as the figure moves closer all doubts are erased from his mind. Barely able to see though his tears, he hastily straps on his sandals, tucks in his robes and, as quickly as his stiff legs can carry him, he runs down to the road to embrace his son.

Helmut Thielicke was a great scholar and preacher of the mid-twentieth century. He maintained that the central figure in Jesus’ parable was not the son at all but the father. For the story is as much about reconciliation as it is about repentance. Imagine if the son had journeyed all that way only to be met with rebuff by his father: “You were my son but you are no longer. Go back to your reckless living and to your pigsty! It’s where you belong.”

If that were the end of the story, we could not deny its justice. But Jesus’ aim is not to give us a lesson about justice. It is to tell us about grace. The father is the God about whom we read in the book of Daniel: “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him” (Daniel 9:9). And the prophet Ezekiel puts it even more passionately: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:10-11).

So it is that Thielicke could write:

The joyful sound of festivity rings out from this story. Wherever forgiveness is proclaimed there is joy and festive garments. We must read and hear this gospel story as it was really meant to be: good news! News so good that we should never have imagined it. News that would stagger us if we were able to hear it for the first time as a message that everything about God is so completely different from what we thought or feared. News that he … is inviting us to share in an unspeakable joy. The ultimate secret of this story is this: There is a homecoming for us all because there is a home.[1]

The Older Brother: Recalcitrance

It’s all a wonderful story. And as those who have turned to Christ in faith we have the assurance of God’s full and free forgiveness and the promise of an eternal place in his presence. But wait! There is more to be told. Jesus hasn’t finished yet. In Rembrandt’s famous painting a tall figure stands off in the shadows to the side. His hands clasped, he looks down coolly on the scene that is unfolding in front of him.

He is the older brother.

He has been out working in the fields. In the distance he has heard music and dancing and joyful laughter. As he nears the house his nostrils are filled with the rich aroma of a fatted calf roasting on the spit. His outrage is such that he cannot bring himself to step through the door. When his father pleads with him to come in and join the party, his cool silence quickly explodes into a furious outburst. Years of pent-up anger and resentment pour out like a flood bursting through a dam.

At this point let’s take a moment to stand back from the story and look at it objectively.

Surely the older brother had every right to be upset. He had been a dutiful son for years and had never received a whit of recognition for it. Where was the fairness in that? Where was the justice?

Now if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that he has a point. And here I want to suggest that it is not the penitent son who is the central figure in Jesus’ story. Nor is it the forgiving father. Rather, it is this son, who stands outside the party room, his feet firmly planted, his arms firmly folded in a well-justified huff.

Why do I think he is the central character? Take a moment to look at Luke’s introduction to Jesus’ parables:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Do you see who Jesus’ audience was? It was all older brothers, people who had spent the greater part of their lives fastidiously seeking to live in obedience to God, right down to the minutest detail. If they weren’t the very definition of older brothers, I can’t imagine who is. And if I’m honest with myself, I am forced to confess that I am one of them too.

Yes, I will freely admit that I am a sinner. I acknowledge that my only claim on God’s salvation is by his grace and through faith in Jesus Christ. Yet I also have to confess that in the course of my years in the family of God I have in many ways adopted the attitudes and perspectives of an older brother. It’s not as though it’s intentional. For the most part it happens gradually and imperceptibly. But it happens none the less—so that I can become critical and judgmental in my attitude towards others, so that I am keener on justice and retribution than I am on mercy and reconciliation. And before I know it, I’m standing outside with my arms folded, while the party’s going on over there.

Yet the most wonderful thing of all is that Jesus leaves the parable open-ended. He does not consign the older son to living outside for the rest of his life in a perpetual state of indignation. It is as though Jesus is saying to all who will hear, “Now over to you…”

How subtly a religion of works can overtake the liberty of grace! How frighteningly easy it is to slip from being a younger brother to an older one! Yet the father’s invitation is there for us all. Is it any coincidence that almost the last words of the Bible are these?

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. (Revelation 22:17)

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[1] Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father, 29