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Greater
Joy Than We Have Ever Known
by Francis MacNutt
taken from the Spring 1997 issue
Joy is the explosive emotion we associate with Jesus
rising up out from the tomb and bursting the bonds of death.
Mary Magdalene cried out with joy when she finally
recognized Jesus after first mistaking him for a gardener when
she went to mourn and weep at Jesus’ tomb.
But so often Christians find it easier to experience
the “mourning and weeping in this vale of tears” than to
feel resurrection joy. Not that we are not meant to weep; in the
Middle Ages people walking by a church where they heard
Dominican friars weeping asked what the noise was all about and
were told they were weeping for the sins of the world. It would
be a great improvement for most of us, if we had that same sense
of tragedy about the evil in the world. After all Jesus wept
when he gazed out at Jerusalem and thought about all the
prophets who had been murdered there. (The traditional site is
still called “Jesus Flevit,” which means in Latin, “Jesus
wept.”)
But our joy as Christians even in this life, should
be still stronger than the sadness The philosopher Nietzsche,
when addressing a group of nuns, us supposed to have said, “If
you have joy in your hearts, would you please inform you
faces.” And our dear friend, Rev. Tommy Tyson, once did a
study on the early Christian martyrs, and told me that the sign
they were truly Christian was that they faced death with a song
on their lips. One of the famous early accounts is of the
martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicity and their companions
(in Carthage in 203 A.D.). Felicity was eight months pregnant
and so eager was she to be killed by the beasts and to meet the
Lord with all her companions that they prayed for her baby to be
born prematurely in prison. And her baby, a girl, was born. Her
delivery was painful, and her jailer, hearing her groan, asked
how she could face a far worse ordeal with the man-eating beasts
of the arena. She answered, “My sufferings here are my own;
there another will be in me, suffering for me, as I for him.”
Hearing this, the jailer was converted.
It seems clear that such unusual joy comes from an
experienced union with Jesus. All Christians are meant to
believe in Jesus Christ but even more than belief, they are
meant to know Jesus as friend, as well as Lord. Knowing him
gives us joy. This intimate knowing may be what Nietzsche’s
nuns most needed. In the famous prophecy concerning New
Testament times in Jeremiah 31:31, the prophet predicts, “In
those days they will all know me, the least as well as the
greatest.”
Coming back to Tommy Tyson, his spiritual hero was
Rufus Moseley, a kind of Protestant Francis of Assisi, from
Georgia. One night Rufus was praying while contemplating Jesus
upon the cross. While deep in prayer he felt his arms being
lifted up until he was in the form of a cross, too. But when
this was happening, he started weeping with joy. So surprised
was Rufus that he asked Jesus why he should be so joyful while
praying about Jesus’ sufferings. Jesus responded with what
Rufus later called “The Reverse Side of the Cross”:
He had suffered upon a cross of pain to put us upon a
cross of joy.
That he had died feeling abandoned by his Father,
That we might know his Father’s love.
That he had died giving up his spirit,
That we might be filled with his Holy Spirit.
Judith, Rachel, David and I pray that during this
Easter time, you might experience the joy of knowing the love of
God brought to you through his Holy Spirit! We send you our love
and blessings.
----------------------------------
The One who dies for us – who was raised to life
for us! – is in the presence of God at this very moment
sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to
drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no
way! -Romans
8:34-35, The Message by Eugene Peterson.
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