Joy & CHRISTianity

10:30 am, Sunday, Oct 8, 2023 ~ FBCA

(Ex 20:1-20; Philippians 3:4b-14) J G White

Joy and Christianity. Really, I call this ‘Joy & Christ,’ yet I wanted it to go with ‘Joy & Mortality, Joy & Humility, Joy & .’ In the face of his opponents, and from a prison cell somewhere, the Apostle Paul had great joy in Jesus, and in sharing Christ with others.

The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord becomes important to us in the ways we experience and meet Jesus. There are so many ways that people know Christ. In this holy letter, Paul wrote of Christ’s resurrected life and His death. Paul wanted to know all this in his own life he was living. We also, in our deep pains and the big questions of life, the beautiful blessings and gracious gifts, meet up with God in Christ.

One might think right away that knowing Jesus is about our spiritual practices, and this certainly is one category. Worship together, praying alone, reading the Bible, meditation, and so forth are activities where we can truly sense we are meeting with the Spirit of Jesus.

One strong experience I remember was some years ago, at a worship service. There was no large crowd in the Chapel; I was in the pews with a few others. We got singing a simple worship song, by John Bell, with repetitive words, and quite a few verses. We sang it every week at that service. We were singing words of Jesus, to ourselves: Lo, I am with you to the end of the word…

Lo, I am with you when you leave self behind…

Lo, I am with you in the struggle for peace…

…and so on. A beautiful little song. I had sung it many times before. But this one evening, while singing, I felt a different praying flowing through me. In a state of great peace, I found myself ‘praying’ for many people and places I knew, all over the place. It was a moment of gentle euphoria. It was like a steady stream of blessing flowing through me to others who were near or far away.

Perhaps you could testify to your own prayer and worship experiences like this. The joy of knowing Christ has its moments like this. These special, quality times together, in our relationship. The beautiful, amazing experiences… and, the Holy Presence in the face of pain and danger.

Yet, spiritual practices are not the only way we ‘experience God,’ of course. So we need to be clear with those around us, that we know there is so much, so many ways we walk with Christ daily. And ‘walk’ is a good word for this. There is an American Christian training centre called the Centre for Action and Contemplation. This reminds us that our daily doings are where we know Christ.

Remember Jesus’ message recorded in Matthew 25, the story of the King separating the good sheep and the bad goats? Why were the sheep welcomed into such blessing? When had they seen and helped and spent time with the King? 37‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these [siblings] of mine, you did it to me.’

Have you spent time with Christ the King when you were with someone in need? There is a sacred space, a very special time, when we are with people in trouble, in pain, in sadness or anger, in grief. It is in these day-to-day activities at home or at work or wherever that God shows up.

I remember friends who got to know a woman down the hall in their large apartment building. The woman was not real happy, and she was not taking very good care of herself. So they started making a bit more supper each day, and always took a plate of food down to her. Something very practical for the good of someone’s body - and spirit. I know I saw the living Christ in that neighbour relationship.

I think I need to read Henri Nouwen’s book, Adam: Beloved of God. This book was written by Nouwen after the death of his handicapped friend Adam Arnett. A Catholic Priest, Nouwen was world renowned as a university professor and an author of Christian books. But he finished his career by leaving the academy and moving to a L’Arche community near Toronto, to be part of that fellowship of caring, with abled and disabled people living together.

Adam was twenty-five when Henri Nouwen became his caregiver. Adam had epilepsy, he could not move much on his own, he never spoke. Caring for him revealed so much about needs, about communication beyond words, and about God. When he was about 35, Adam died. Nouwen wrote: “From the moment I saw Adam’s body lying in his casket, I was struck by the mystery of this man’s life and death…Adam’s death touched me deeply because for me he was the one who more than any book or professor led me to the person of Jesus.”

We get to meet, what we can call the Spirit of Jesus, in living life with others, amid our needs, our hurts, and our hallelujahs!

Others of us get into the student mode of being a believer. We are book people, and keep reading and studying, going to seminars and listening to podcasts. Some folks get close to Jesus this way.

Some of you know the name of scholar Dominic Crossan - I know you’ve even used his books in study groups here, years ago. He is a Bible scholar, known from the group called the Jesus Seminar that got some publicity a couple decades ago. I got to hear Professor Crossan give lectures for a week in Truro, one year, in person. And I remember his saying how, at the core of his experience of Jesus Christ was his study, his scholarship, his continual journey of learning.

So it is for some Christians. I suppose all this is like the so-called love languages. We could say: some people are in love with Jesus, and what means the most to them are the blessings showered upon them by Christ. Someone else connects with the Son of God most by study of the Word of God. For the next Christian, being with Jesus is all about the mystical prayer experiences of meditation or worship or singing. And for another believer, Jesus is most real in the doing of good things, cooperating with the Spirit, obediently. And so on.

Think about it: where does your greatest Joy in Jesus arise? Another organization, Renovare, teaches about six spiritual traditions in Christianity. I think they illustrate the variety of ways people are different in how they connect with Christ most of all. We have the Evangelical Tradition that is all about sharing truth and the Holy Bible. The Charismatic Tradition that is about being filled with the Holy Spirit and aware of the Presence and touch of God. There is the Compassionate Tradition, all about doing loving actions and helping out in this world. Also, the Contemplative Tradition, which focuses upon prayer and meditation and such activities. And the Holiness Tradition, about finding God’s will and the ways to obey.

Our Old Testament text today, the Ten Commandments, is a great core statement that guides holiness, our obedience to God, for instance. It is good to find a balance for ourselves among all these traditions, while we each have our special strengths. You may be a doer. Or a thinker. Or a pray-er. Or a communicator. Each of us a part of the Body of Christ, with our own special purposes and talents. We find our greatest joys in Christ and Xianity in different parts of life. And we respect the amazing and different ways others around us are finding their way to Joy in Jesus. We’re not all going to be alike.

The Hayward lecturer at Acadia University this past week was Dr. Willie Jennings, of Yale Divinity School. Talking about people in their 20s and 30s today, he claimed they come to Jesus differently than previous generations. Then, about training leaders for churches, Dr. Jennings said: At the heart of it for all of us is we have to rethink, and think very slowly and carefully, about what Christian formation is. What are we forming people towards? We have got to rework that.

What is a Christian to look like, that doesn't look like Billy Graham? There are many [divinity] schools that, when they think of the idea of Christian, they think of Billy Graham. That is a horrible mistake… We have to rethink exactly what the Christian life looks like. This is the hard work…

Today, I feel I have few answers about anything, but I am so thankful to God that Christians are born again to take so many paths. We show the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ the Lord in many beautiful ways.

Let us keep on. Run the race with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. With our own unique strides, our own pace, our own good posture, our own close teammates, we follow the example of the Apostle: 13…but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. This week, may you find some real Joy in Christ.