John 15:11: I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!

“My joy.” That is what Jesus said. His joy. He wants people to have his joy and- not only that- he wants us to have the fullness of his joy.

Imagine walking around our city and watching people. Instead of people working hard not to look at each other as they pass on the sidewalk, people give a trusting smile to each other. Instead of walking by someone’s home and hearing the silence of loneliness, you hear a gathering of people laughing with deep soul-full laughs through the window. Instead of the weariness that comes from sinful attitudes and actions, free hearted celebration of all that God has done for us (and is doing for us!) in Jesus.

As the sun starts hiding from us for the winter and people retreat into their homes instead of playing outside, it gets easier to see that our city is not a city defined by joy, but by the effects of our rebellion against the Source of our joy. It might be saturated by a kind of selfish happiness that masquerades as joy, but it is not Jesus’ joy.

What if Jesus really does want us to have his joy? What if he moves heaven and earth and other people in order to bring us to a place where we can experience his joy? What if he doesn’t just want to make the whole world right again in some distant future, but to begin that process now, and share his joy in the process?

Let’s celebrate the man of sorrows who is also familiar with joy. He is familiar with joy because he can never escape joy- even through the hardest circumstances since that kind of joy finds it’s never-ending Source in his own heart. And, what if, that joy he wants to share overflows into our city to push out the sorrows we are so used to?

“There was something that [Jesus] hid from all men when he went up a mountain to pray. There was something that he covered constantly with abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth.” - Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Orthodoxy