By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
Many of us probably have had an image of Christ as one who was sharply focused, serious-minded and all business. While these impressions are not wrong, they are not the total picture of Christ the Gospels paint for us. Christ also was a joyous person. He not only spoke often of His joy, but also to occasions when He experienced great joy, according to the Gospel writers.
For example, after the 70 that He sent out to minister in His name returned with their reports, Luke 10:21 records Christ’s reaction to their reports in these words, “In that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit.” The ministry of others was a source of joy for Him, even as the Holy Spirit was the inspiration for that joy.
‘Let him sing’
When He instituted the Lord’s Supper by taking bread and a cup, investing in them symbolic meaning related to His body and blood, Mark 14:26 tells us that at the conclusion of Supper, “When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”
How often do we think of Christ as lending His voice to the singing of a hymn? Surely He sang perfectly on key. Do we not usually make a connection between joyousness and singing? James 5:13 makes such a connection by asking, “Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.” Isaiah 65:14 declares, “My servants shall sing for joy of heart.”
Being full
Not only did Christ join the singing, in His words to the disciples in the upper room that evening before the crucifixion, Christ assured them, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).
Still later that same evening, with the shadow of the cross drawing ever closer, Christ turned to the Father in prayer. In the course of that prayer, He prayed, “Now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13). Christ desires that His followers’ joy should be full. Our joy coupled with His joy equals joy in its fullness.
Looking forward
Christ’s joy had a forward-looking dimension to it. After referring to Christ as the “author and finisher of our faith,” Hebrews 12:2 continues, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Christ knew the future — greater joy that awaited Him when He returned to the Father. The prospect of an ascension back to the Father was a major ingredient of Christ’s joy. Not only did He rejoice over His own return to heavenly glory, but also over the Father’s plan that those redeemed through His shame and suffering would one day join Him there.
As Hebrews 2:10 phrases it, Christ would ultimately bring many sons to glory. That was a joyous prospect set before Him even as He faced the cross.
Good like medicine
The thought we take away from these references to the joy of the Lord is that Christ possessed joy in His own heart, such as He wanted to share with His followers, joy both here and now as well as in heaven to come. Two longstanding truths are that the joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10) and that a merry heart does good like a medicine (Prov. 17:22).
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