Pure Joy

Fleeting Joy

Another week has flown by. The work has been demanding in the hot Bethlehem sun. Even in the early spring the sun beats down on you as you labour. Planing is never as easy as it seem. This week you were finally able to begin to sow the seeds. Wheat seeds may seem easy to plant but there is a lot of work that goes into it. After you till the soil with your plow you then have to sow the seeds. This is the easy part, walking along the field you rent from the land owner, tossing the seed to make sure it is evenly spread. But that is not the last step.

Then you would have to hook up your ox to the plow again and plow the fields a second time to make sure the seed was buried. You could only sow as much seed and you kew you could plow under in a day because if you left the seed overnight surely birds and small rodents would eat the seed and you would lose much of your crop.

This is always tedious work. Sowing and plowing, sowing and plowing. Over and over, until your field is finally planted. Being a farmer is not the most glorious work but it makes you proud that you can work the land God has created for you. You might even say that it gives you great joy to be a farmer. You know that in a couple of months the harvest will be ripe and you will get to reap the rewards of all you hard work.

As you prepare for yet another Sabbath you think about the joy you will feel soon when you get to reap your harvest. The joy of seeing fruits of your hard work. The joy of feeding your family and your village. The joy of working in God’s creation. but there is a greater joy that you experience. The joy of worshiping God.

Your worship of God in the synagogue is some of the greatest joy you will ever experience. Even though you are ruled by the Romans you still have joy that God is the Lord of your life and that is what you get to celebrate at the Sabbath.

So as you pack your family up and prepare for the walk to the synagogue you think of the joy that you experience as a son of God. As you and your family begin you walk across town you joy quickly fades.

You see a group of Roman Legionaries, the soldiers occupying your village, harassing one of your neighbors. You do not know what they did to provoke this. Perhaps they had spoken out against Cesar or the Roman governor Herod, the man who call himself the King of Judah. But it’s more than likely that your neighbour was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This, unfortunately, happened more often than not. From time to time the legionaries would try to exercise their authority so we knew they were in control. Although, more often than not the legionaries would just get bored and find enjoyment in harassing the locals.

Every time you saw the Legionaries you are reminded that you are not the master of your own destiny, you are servants of the Romans. How could you possibly have joy when you lived your life as a slave. It was not outright slavery, but you knew the truth. You were beholden to the Romans, they controlled your life and the lives of all of your people. Sure there were time of joy but as a whole you and your people were miserable.

The people in first century Israel were not in control of anything. The Romans ruled almost every aspect of their lives. The people of Israel had to submit to Roman law, they could not make laws for themselves. They had to use Roman currency, the denarii with the picture of pagan rules on it. They could only use the currency of their own people, the shekel, in the temple, it was no longer the currency of the people. And what few denarii you did have would be required by the Roman tax collectors eventually anyway. There was not much to be joyful about for the Hebrew people.

This was not a new situation for them either. The Hebrew people had spent over one thousand years trying to find the joy that God had promised. Trying to find the joy the great king David had written about so many years ago Psalm 16:11

Psalm 16:11 NIV

You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

This was an eternal joy that would never end. This was the joy that all Hebrews longed for. But because the people had never full walked with God their joy was always an earthy one. It was always fleeting.

Promise of Joy

As you sat down in synagogue, distressed from what you had witnessed on your walk here you wondered if you or your children would ever experience the joy that has been promised.

As you sit in synagogue and day dream your wife begins to nudge you. Why is she nudging you? You’re not snoring, you’re not asleep, you’re just daydreaming. Not causing any harm. But then you snap out of your dream because you have been called on to read the Scripture today. You always relish the time when you get to read Scripture. You jump up, startled, and proceed to the Torah scroll sitting on the altar. You unfurl the scroll to your favorite prophet, the prophet Isaiah. You begin to read Isaiah 35:1-10

Isaiah 35:1–10 NIV

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God. Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.” Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

The Hebrew people were living on a promise of joy. They still had intermittent joy; joy from time with family, joy from working in God’s creation, joy from knowing that you will one day your people will get to experience the eternal joy that God has promised to your people.

That joy is not there yet because eternal joy comes not from anything people can find on earth. True joy doesn’t come from working the land. True joy doesn’t come from your friends. True eternal joy doesn’t even come from the time spent with your family. True eternal joy only comes from a relationship with God. That relationship that has broken because of humanities sinful nature.

This is the promise of eternal joy, that one day all creation will be healed and our relationship with God will finally be restored. This is the gift of true joy.

Eternal Joy

You finish reading the passage and the Rabbi beings to teach. He tells us that eternal joy beings when and only when God returns to save us. Salvation never could come from human means. There is nothing you could do to earn your salvation. Salvation only comes from God.

Only when God returns to earth to save you will you be offered eternal joy. And when that joy comes it will be ever lasting. The place where God will take you and your people will be a place of eternal joy. It will be a place of peace. A place where nothing unholy will enter. We are even told that the road which leads to this place will be called the way of holiness. A highway that only the righteous will be able to trod.

The highway will lead to Zion, the city of the Lord. This will be the place where only the righteous will be able to go and this is where eternal Joy will be found. This is because it will be in the city of Zion that your relationship will be restored with God. And you long for that day.

Joy is something that we all long for. Each one of us waits and hopes for moments of joy in the storm of life. It is something that first century Hebrew hoped for but little did they know that the agent of eternal joy was just around the corner. Soon God would return to earth. He would walk among the people. He would live for his people and he would make the ultimate so that his people could be offered salvation. They could be offered that eternal joy.

We are all offered that joy. We are offered the joy that comes with a relationship with Jesus. This is a joy that our first century Hebrew was still waiting for. But a joy that we all can have. When we accept Jesus into our lives, when we submit to him we are all offered that eternal joy.

Another Sabbath has come and gone. It was a day filled with ups and downs. The moments of fleeting joy. Joy that will come and go. It has also been filled with the promise of eternal joy, a joy that will never end. As you lay your head down to rest before another week of work you remember the joy that you are promised. Now you have the hope of the joy that will never end, the joy that only comes from God.