by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Joy Is Rooted in Intimacy with Jesus

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.” 
Isaiah 53:3 New Living Translation

If there is one thing that holds true for us during this pandemic it’s that it has robbed us of happiness. We haven’t been able to do things that made us happy as often as we used to do them, if at all. Shopping patterns have changed. Large celebrations are a thing of the past. Going to a sporting event means watching it on television.

So what do we do? We try to create new islands of happiness. These islands are places where we escape the sorrow and pain of our daily lives. We have an attitude that if I escape to my island, whatever that island might be, I will feel better about my life. I will find a little bit of happiness.

The problem with an island is that there comes a time we must return to the mainland. There is a time that we must reenter our pandemic infected world.

I’ve been influenced recently to take a different perspective on happiness by Henri Nouwen in his book, Following Jesus. He writes, “The world says, ‘Life is basically sad, depressing, and sorrowful, but let’s create little islands of happiness.’… But momentary happiness is not what Jesus means when he speaks about joy.” (p. 101) He also states, “The joy of Jesus is a joy that is born out of his ongoing intimacy with God.” (p. 100)

Happiness is not the same as joy.

We don’t often think of Jesus as a “man of sorrows” as Isaiah prophesied, or I should say, we don’t want to see Jesus as a “man of sorrows.” We’d rather see him as the triumphant King, which he is. However, the triumphant King knows our sorrows, was intimate with our sorrows.

In other words, joy is rooted in the One who didn’t seek islands of happiness, but immersed himself in our daily struggles. Maybe that’s where we will find joy as well, not in the islands of happiness, but in embracing intimacy with Jesus who knows our every struggle.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado