Personal Matters

In an earlier article[1] I emphasised that only in Christ’s strength can we carry the cross he’s appointed for us (Luke 9:23), but that I sometimes intimidated others by putting on them a load they could not carry. I am now sensing this problem is intimately related to the subject of joy. Without a clear sense of joy I cannot impart to others the Spirit’s strength to obey the difficult call of Christ. To be able carry our cross daily with a sense of victory it is imperative that we are in touch with Jesus and his call to carry the cross. Before however proceeding to discuss Jesus’ life, I want to pay attention to a common problem plaguing Christians today.

Psychology or Spirituality?

The Church is full of people who describe their basic life problems in the emotive language of fear, anxiety, depression, worry, burnout, stress…and so on. I believe that the very way we think of and experience these disturbed inner states is a product of the pyschologisation of Western society. Therapies cannot keep pace with the fragmentation of our emotions, and attempts to self-medicate through entertainment, consumption, pornography and emotionally charged worship are doomed to fail because the incomplete pleasures of this world cannot heal what is essentially a spiritual problem. There is a real ‘ME’ problem here, for while such troubles are real and significant[2] they are generally experienced as unattached to who we are in Christ. The basic truth underlying this paper is that the Christian has no private emotions; everything we experience belongs to Jesus.

The Call and Joy of Jesus

The Jesus’ story begins and ends in joy (Luke 1:44; 24:52); but its hinge point is the catastrophe of the cross. The profound mystery of human existence is that the seeming irreconcilable worlds of sorrow and delight are united in Christ.

The baptism of Jesus is the site of his call to follow his Father into the world. These delight-filled words ““You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”” (Luke 3:22), descend upon Jesus in the Spirit because his baptism marks him out as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Indestructible resurrection joy can only come through the sacrifice of the cross.

Jesus’ great cross cry, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?””(Mark 15:34) arises out of a heart that has altogether lost the sense of the call of God previously conveyed by the Father’s tender voice and the Spirit’s uplifting presence. Yet the very tone of this cry, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” places God and not self at the centre of all human suffering.  In the midst of what seems to be only anguish and despair we are told by the Hebrews, “for the joy that was set before him (Jesus) endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”(12:1-2). In the midst of immeasurable agony, the core of Jesus’ life was surging towards reclaiming intimacy with his God in the power of the Spirit (Heb 9:14). The result was the inextinguishable joy of the resurrection (Luke 24:41; John 16:22).

The Call and Joy of ‘ME’

The impact of God’s call on the first Christians to be one with Jesus was incalculable. When Paul spoke of “the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches” and of his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 11:28; 12:7 cf. Acts 18:9) he understood such painful experiences from inside the call of God upon his life as a Christian. The call to become like Jesus (Rom 8:29) means that such emotional pressures are part of the cross we must all bear daily (Luke 9:23). Whatever the pains of our lives, and whatever their natural origins, their meaning is now reconstituted through our union with Christ. They are not personal/private experiences belonging to ‘ME’. Since even my pain now belongs to the Lord, by faith I can look to Jesus and anticipate a foretaste of the resurrection joy which is ours in him (Heb 12:1-2). Such an “inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Pet 1:8) drives out our craving for the temporary pleasures of this world, which may deaden, but can never heal our sorrows.

Human beings can cope with almost any amount of suffering provided it has a purpose, heavenly joy conveys this purpose. The joy which is the fruit of sharing our suffering with Christ points us to the final goal of the uniting of all things in him (Eph 1:10); such a presence makes any affliction bearable. As Jesus’ own desire for the coming of God’s kingdom kept moving forward even through the doubts assailing him on the cross (Mark 15:34), by the power of the Spirit the same can be true for us (Rom 8:11).

Joy in All Things

The great challenge we face as Western believers is to experience the joy of Jesus within every element of life, painful as well as pleasant (James 1:2-4). For this we need a revelation that there is a carrier wave of the crucified and risen Word carrying all things in heaven and earth to a glorious fulfilling climax (Hebrews 1:3). Nothing in the whole sphere of human interactions is essentially excluded from this spiritual reality.

As such the road worker’s friendly greeting, “G’day mate!”[3] is a source of joy to God in Christ (Col 1:16). My regular nightly traumas are not mere psychological phenomena, but part of a journey upon which I am sovereignly being led by the Spirit to enjoy Christ, even in the arena of struggle and many rejections. Everything has been set apart (i.e. made holy) by the call of God on my life in union with Jesus (1 Cor 1:30 cf. Rom 11:33-36).

Conclusion

The depressive tendencies of the old ‘ME’ have for many years clouded my prophetic vision of the fullness of the accomplishments of the cross. Let me illustrate this by comparing two profound statements.

When I came across this first quote I was naturally drawn to it: “Pain is a holy angel, who shows treasures to men which otherwise remain hidden forever; through him men become greater than through all the joys of the world.” (Stifter). Yet I have been confronted with another citation which is much more faithful to who Jesus is for us: “But it (pain) needs to be overcome every time and thus there is an even holier angel than the one of pain, that is the one of joy in God.” (Bonhoeffer).