Receiving Joy
In the world around us, our friends, neighbors, and family are often fearful, alone, and depressed.
This past week, you may have seen the Facebook postings about the end of the world happening because we had a solar eclipse and a comet, and an earthquake hit New York. You may notice that we are still here, despite the eclipse and the comet and the earthquake. But why do people get frightened of these things?
People become fearful and anxious in our world because there are always things that we cannot control. We cannot control the price of gasoline; we cannot control the price of bread. We can’t control the wars going on in the Middle East or in Russia, and we can’t control if or when there will be a war with China. We can’t control earthquakes. We certainly cannot control the orbit of the Moon, which is what causes eclipses, and we cannot control the appearance of comets, both of which have frightened people for thousands of years, because they are not normal, daily happenings.
And we cannot control when the next epidemic of disease, perhaps flu, will break out. There are many things in this world which we cannot control.
Some of these fears are quite rational. A direct war with Russia or China would be very bad, mainly because each of these countries has nuclear missiles which could kill many people within a half hour. Strong earthquakes can be very dangerous, especially if we lived in a section of the country prone to strong earthquakes, like California, or along the Mississippi-Tennessee border, or near Charleston, SC. But we don’t have strong earthquakes here -and the one in NYC wasn’t that strong – so a fear of earthquakes in our area is not rational. Of course, a fear of flooding might be very rational, depending upon where you live or drive. A fear of forest fire can also be very rational.
Yet most rational fears can simply be thought through and planned for. For example, if you live in a flood-prone area, you should have a plan for quickly putting things high, out of the water’s reach. If you live in an earthquake-prone area, you should build your home to earthquake building codes. And if you are concerned about nuclear war, there are areas in which you can live which are less prone to attack. Besides, the survivalist industry can give you all the advice you would ever need on how to survive a nuclear war. And if you are concerned about a forest fire, start cutting the brush and trees and grass near your home and put a metal roof on your home.
Yet some fears are simply because of superstition. People look into the night sky and see a comet. Then, when Halley’s comet appeared in 1066 and later that year, the Frenchman William the Conqueror invaded England and killed the previous king in battle, the average Englishman began to fear comets. We see a scary sight or hear of scary news and we begin to look for a pattern so we can predict bad things the next time around, like finding tiger prints around our home when livestock go missing.
We see a black cat and a family member dies, and so we might say that black cats lead to bad things happening. And so, I ask you this, do you believe that black cats or the balls of ice we call comets, or the orbit of the Moon control the events of the Universe?
Another set of fears are media created. Someone makes a quick video talking about the dangers of eating fish. Another person speaks of the damage to the planet when we eat beef. Still another speaks of people getting food poisoning from eating chicken infected with salmonella. And pretty soon, a certain group of people won’t eat meat of any kind. Teenagers and children are particularly susceptible to media created fears, because they don’t the experience to know what is a real danger to take seriously – and what refers to a particular, limited situation.
Our friends, neighbors, and family are fearful. But they are also alone. Your children and teenagers also are fearful and alone. And these two things feed on each other. When we are alone in the dark, deep down we realize that we are not as safe as when we have family and friends around to protect us.
One year when I was in college, I lived alone in a trailer near Star City. I remember going back to the my lonely trailer one Friday evening. As a student, I did not know my neighbors. I was not sleepy, so I decided to watch television, but I only received one or two channels. So I decided to watch a movie. It turned out to be a horror movie about a babysitter who receives frightening phone calls, which grow more threatening over the evening. She reports the calls to the police, who put a trace on the line. Finally, late that evening, she gets another call. The police call her back and tell her to run because the calls are coming from another line INSIDE THE HOUSE! Believe me when I tell you, I turned on all the lights and did not sleep easily that night. For when we are alone, we are easy prey to our fears.
And our friends, neighbors, and family members are often depressed, for even in broad daylight, sitting alone without anyone to speak with allows us to become sad. Our fears make us worry about our future and when we are alone, we can do little more than think about how bad things might become. And so there are many people around us who are lonely, fearful, and depressed. Increasingly, our children and teenagers are lonely, fearful, and depressed – and they don’t have the experience to separate the rational fears from the media-created fears. How can we help them? And, we also need to understand – this can happen to us, too. We can become lonely, fearful, and depressed.
And this was the situation with the disciples after Jesus was executed on the cross that Friday evening. They were fearful, lonely and depressed. They had a rational fear – that after arresting Jesus and killing him, the authorities might come after Jesus’ disciples. That is why Peter denied even knowing Jesus three times the evening before. That is why Mark ran away, even slipping out of his clothes to get away into the night. They spent Friday and Saturday in hiding, alone. And that is why on Sunday evening, most of the disciples met in a locked room in a private home. They were fearful, depressed, and they needed to be with other people who had experienced the same frightening, depressing event they had experienced – the arrest and execution of their teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. And there were other men and women there that evening, also. It was not just the surviving Eleven – Eleven because Judas had killed himself after betraying Jesus to the Temple leadership.
They were gathering together. Peter and John had reported that the Tomb was empty, when suddenly Cleopas and another disciple can rushing in. They had walked to the village of Emmaus that day with a man who turned out to be the risen Jesus. And while they were all talking about this when Jesus himself stodd among them. At first, they thought he was a ghost. But Jesus asked them to look carefully at his hands and feet and even touch him, for, He said, “A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
And joy and amazement came to them. Some still didn’t believe because, after all, when you’ve seen someone die and they come back to life, it is really something that you need to get used to. So he asked them for some food and they gave him a piece of broiled fish to eat, which he did.
Joy and amazement came to the disciples that evening. On Saturday evening, they had been fearful, alone, depressed, just like many people in this world today. But on Sunday evening, they were filled with joy – they weren’t alone, and their fear had fled from them as fast as they had fled from the arresting soldiers on Thursday evening. Why was that?
First of all, they had known they needed to be with friends– except for Thomas, who had to be convinced that week to join them the next Sunday. For as much as we American romanticize the idea of living alone, becoming self-sufficient to ourselves, walking away from any sort of groups of people – there is something buried deep within our souls that wants us to be in fellowship with other people.
We want and need family and friends and neighbors. We want people to eat dinner with, to share stories with, to band together with when times are rough. We want friends who will loan us a particular socket wrench when we need to repair a vehicle, or friends who will loan us a couple tablespoons of allspice for the cake we are making – and we are ready to show up with our chainsaw when that oak tree falls on their car, and we will bring our friend a pan of lasagna when she gets home from the hospital. For it simply feels right – and that’s because it is how we were designed by God. We were designed to be happiest working side-by-side with other people.
And so, the disciples came together that evening, even before Jesus appeared to them. But we all know that that meeting could have gone many different ways if they were left to themselves. They might have all sadly decided to head back to Galilee the next morning. They might have disagreed with each other, argued and split up. They might have angrily decided to become terrorists, getting revenge for the death of Jesus. But instead, Jesus showed up and they became joyful!
For you see, Jesus’ presence took away their fears. If death is not final, what are we fearful of? Jesus looked better that evening than He had in many days – although, of course, he had several holes punched in him. But he looked GOOD and was happy, with strength and vigor. And so, the disciples began to realize that they also had nothing to fear.
And so, being together with friends, their fear taken away, their depression also vanished. For depression usually happens when we focus too much on our fears – even the fear that no one cares about us, which happens when we are lonely.
The Apostle John looked back on this years later. You see, John remembered that at the Last Supper, that Thursday evening, Jesus had called the disciples “brothers”. If we are indeed brothers and sisters to Jesus, we are part of his family. And that evening, in that upper room, Jesus proved to them that he was the Son of God the Father. He even referred again to God as “my Father”. And so John put two and two together, and realized that if Jesus considered him to be his brother, and Jesus was Son of God, than all the disciples were children of God. And that took away John’s fears and his loneliness forever. John wrote:
3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! … 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Having that understanding that God loves us as God’s children takes away our fears and loneliness and depression and give us joy. Look again at verse 3: “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” The very act of understanding purifies us.
For when we truly grasp deep down in our hearts that God is our loving Father, that we are God’s children, that God has adopted us into His family, that we have God’s protection, that we will live eternally like Jesus, that our resurrected bodies will be like Jesus’ resurrected body – all of the evil that is our fear, our selfishness, our loneliness, our depression will drain right out of us and we will become pure like Jesus – no matter what we’ve done in the past.
In our joy, our proper response is to move forward beginning today to live up to the example of Jesus our brother and king as part of the family of God.
That evening, Jesus opened the minds of the disciples so they could see how the Old Testament scriptures had pointed to Jesus. He told them that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in [Jesus’] name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.” He reminded them that they had witnessed his resurrection. And then, he told them to stay in Jerusalem until God gave them power. He was referring to the power of the Holy Spirit.
A couple of months later, look at the change that came onto Peter. Remember that on that Thursday night, Peter was sneaking around, denying even knowing Jesus. But a tremendous change came over Peter.
A couple of months after the crucifixion, Peter and John walked to the Temple. There was a man who was lame from birth sitting by the gate begging. Peter said, Silver or god I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” He helped the man stand, and the man began walking and jumping in joy. People came running.
Peter began to preach powerfully, referring to the man’s healing:
“Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. 14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. 16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.
17 “Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. 18 But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer.
19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,”
Times of refreshing. The dread that all people have when we feel guilty, that terrible feeling that our shame will be exposed by God for everyone to see, our failures that we have experience are all gone when we realize just who Jesus is and what that means to us. And so joy arises in us.
As you know by now, some of my sermons are for you, personally. And some are for you to somehow send onto your friends. You can do this by forwarding the written sermon or forwarding the audio podcast recording – or telling your friend, neighbor, relative – or grandchildren what you’ve learned. In this case, you can tell them how to avoid fear, loneliness, and depression.
How? Tell your friend – I’ve noticed that you seem afraid of a lot of things. Or I’ve noticed that you seem lonely. Or I’ve noticed that you seem sad lately. And then tell them the difference between the short-term happiness of the world – and the long-term joy that comes from knowing who Christ is and what He has done for you.
My friends, the world tells you to look for happiness in a new car, a new iPhone, in new clothing, or in a trip to the Caribbean Islands. The world tells you that you will find love by exercise in a gym, by buying the right jewelry from the right jewelry store, by driving the right car.
The world tells you about all the things that can kill you, the dangers that are coming over the next five or ten or hundred years, and the critical importance of tuning in every day to see what dangers are lurking in our food, in our neighborhood, and in the other candidates for political office.
But if you want to lose your fear, if you want a deep joy that will last beyond short-term happiness, if you want peace in this world – and eternal life in the next world – the answer is simple:
Do a deep dive into understanding who Jesus is, what He did for us, and what that means for your future. For all it takes is you to understand and believe that Jesus has made it possible for us to return to God’s family, as children of God, and we will be protected, live eternally, and be loved, never alone again for the rest of eternity.
Come to church. There are people here who survived World War II. They lived through multiple wars. They lived through many political crises. They survived not only COVID, but also flu epidemics, measles, and other diseases that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Some have lived through earthquakes and fought fires. Others have survived terrible cancer and heart issues and car wrecks. Still others have seen multiple family members die. But they have all survived, largely because they have learned to trust the love that Jesus has for each of us. They will live eternally.
We will live eternally and never be alone again. Your brothers and sisters will be there, too. Especially Jesus.
And knowing that is how we find and receive joy. Amen?
Excellent message, Pastor Brian. Thanks for giving us a great way to share the hope and joy found only in Jesus.