Isn't it interesting that Paul had never been to Rome when he wrote them and encouraged them to have genuine love? He had never even received a letter from them asking him any spiritual questions. He had never had an opportunity to solve any of their problems. But, because there were people in that church, he knew people and he knew that people were struggling with the development of genuine love. He assumed correctly that this struggle was a universal human problem for all who desire to be Christians. He was right on target, for now, as well as then, we all wrestle with this challenge.
Our modern culture is so committed to self-service that someone wrote the following humorous prayer: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray my Cuisinart to keep. I pray my stocks are on the rise, and that my analyst is wise, that all the wine I sip is white, and that my hot tub's watertight; that racquetball won't get too tough, that all my sushi's fresh enough. I pray my cordless phone still works, that my career won't lose its perks, my microwave won't radiate, my condo won't depreciate. I pray my health club doesn't close, and that my money market grows. If I go broke before I wake, I pray my Volvo they won't take."*
Love is the rainbow upon which the eight colors are spread. "Let love be genuine. . . ." Helen Fazio's expression of love for her imprisoned brother, Joseph Cicippio, was classic. Joseph Cicippio was taken hostage in Lebanon by pro-Iranian Shiites and was eventually held for 5½ years. But Helen also had her problems. For 12 years, her ovarian cancer had been in remission, but now she had been informed that it had recurred and she had only two weeks to two months to live.
Fazio, however, defied her prognosis, and with the power that only love can provide, she became the family cheerleader while her family stood vigil during Joseph's captivity. She said she would not die without embracing her younger brother, Joseph, one more time.
On December 5, 1991, Fazio's promise was fulfilled when her brother waded through a throng of TV cameras and reporters to hug his sister inside their brother Thomas's Norristown, Pennsylvania, home. "Oh, Joe! Joe! I love you so!" she said as they embraced for the first time in years. She died five months later (Trenton Times, April 24, 1992).
Helen Fazio's death-defying act of love for her brother is a model of what is in store for us when we perform such an act of genuine love for all our brothers and sisters in need around the world.
*My apologies to the author, whom I could not trace.
I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. John 15:11
Joy
Is our lack of joy due to the fact that we are Christians, or to the fact that we are not Christian enough?" Paul Tillich raised this question in The New Being (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 42). I wonder what the answer is? We sing, "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee . . . " and we call God the "Giver of immortal gladness. . . . " We sing, "All thy works with joy surround Thee . . . " and all these works "call us to rejoice in Thee." We sing that God is the "Well spring of the joy of living," and we ask him to "lift us to the joy divine." We sing how "joyful music leads us sunward in the triumph song of life."
Are you really as joyful as that hymn seems to indicate? Are those really your feelings or just the feelings of Henry van Dyke, the author of the words? Maybe he felt that way, but you do not. "Is our lack of joy due to the fact that we are Christians, or to the fact that we are not Christian enough?"
You have heard the story about the worshiper who was shouting and hollering in the last pew of a church at various times during the service. After one gleeful alleluia, the usher rushed up to him and asked, "Is there anything wrong?" "Not at all," he responded, "I've got religion."
"Well," said the usher, "you didn't get it here." Would you be ushered out of church if you were too joyful? Would your cohorts at work usher you out if you were full of joy? Would your classmates at school usher you out if you were joyful on campus? If you were always full of joy, would your spouse wonder what happened to you? If you embraced this fruit of the Spirit, would your personality be so dramatically altered that your everyday acquaintances would think that you have had a serious personality change?
"Have your eyes ever watered out of sheer joy in worship?"
In the Bible, joy is expressed in worship by shouting, by a loud voice, by playing a pipe, harp, trumpet, flute, or stringed instrument. Joy in the Bible is an action of dancing, leaping or stamping our feet. Joy is smiling faces, twinkling eyes, and expectant feelings. Joy is getting all bubbly and feeling the emotions rising up in you, feelings over which you have no control. I had those feelings when I held my grandchild for the first time. I was overwhelmed by joy. Joyful tears filled my eyes. Have your eyes ever watered out of sheer joy in worship? I hope so. I grew up in the House of Hope Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every church should be a House of Joy Church. Unashamed, blatant, tearful, outrageous, uninhibited joy! When it isn't, it lacks one of the outward indicators of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Christ is a person of joy, for a relationship of love with God leads to joy. Every Sunday school room in this nation should have a smiling Jesus on its walls. Every sanctuary in this nation should have a smiling Jesus looking down upon us. It is a travesty that in most of our minds we do not think of Jesus as smiling when we imagine Jesus. Do you ever think of Jesus with the twinkling eyes?
Jesus is telling us in the Gospel of John that he is the true vine and that we are the branches. We are connected to him for life, and when we are cut off from him we die. We are nothing without him. We are dependent on him for life and sustenance. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can't do a thing" (John 15:5). In our text, Jesus tells us, "I have said these things to you so that..." What? . . . "my joy." Jesus wants to share his joy with us. Jesus, the "joy of man's desiring," the joyful Jesus, wants to share his joy with us. Too often we only think of him as rejected and a man of sorrows, but through all he experienced, he was a joyful Jesus. He had a relationship of love with God that led to joy. The author of the book of Hebrews tells us Jesus "for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God" (12:2). Jesus endured all that he endured, not for the fun of it. It wasn't fun. Not for the glory of it. There was no earthly glory. Not for the power in it. There wasn't any. But for the joy that was set before him, the joy of being in the presence of God himself. Being with God, obeying God, doing the will of God on this earth, produces joy in the hearts of human beings. That's what God promises to his faithful people today. He promises all who would obey him pure joy.
In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.
When the woes of life o'ertake me,
Hopes deceive, and fears annoy,
Never shall the cross forsake me.
Lo! it glows with peace and joy.
When the sun of bliss is beaming
Light and love upon my way,
From the cross the radiance streaming
Adds more luster to the day.
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
By the cross are sanctified;
Peace