Sermon from May 14, 2000
Where does joy come from? How does it gain a footing in the jungle of life? Trouble and sorrow never stray too far from our experience. The froth of busy lives tries to imitate joy – not very successfully. I am raising questions too difficult to answer satisfactorily in 30 minutes, but they deserve our thoughtful attention now and throughout our lives. Reflections on the Gospel of Mark prompted them in me most recently. I suppose I could have started several Mark sermons with these questions about joy, but today's text brings the matter home to us as clearly as any in the gospel.

It struck me one day several weeks ago how joy permeates the Gospel of Mark. That caught my attention, because conflict and danger seem to dominate events reported in the Gospel. The word gospel itself offers evidence of this paradox. The word means good news, and good news generally gives us joy. The story Mark tells often seems anything but good news. Conflict, danger, and sorrow seem to exist side by side with joy, but they do not snuff out the joy.

Time after time we will see examples of this in Mark. I hesitate to call it a dominant theme. It is more like a faint fragrance that fills the house. Could our experience of joy become that pervasive? That brings us back to our original question: Where does joy come from? How does it gain a footing in the jungle of life?

Maybe a look at joy in Jesus' journey in the jungle might help our faith find firm footing and feel real joy, when sorrow, anxiety, and fatigue threaten to thwart it. We can have that look in the unfolding story that Mark continues in Mark 2:18ff.

If you are new to BVBC or to the gospels of the New Testament, I would like to proceed with a cautionary word. The Washington Post once urged people "to make Christmas speciall by 'reading Mark or Luke's narrative at home.' (Mark has a birth narrative? Gee. I can't find one)," (CT, 2-7-00, 82). It gives you the impression that no editor, proofreader, or fact-checker in this powerful shaper of public opinion knew that Mark does not have a Christmas story like Matthew and Luke.

One of my favorite columnists is Frederica Matthewes-Green (no kin!). She commented on this goof in the Washington Post and others like it with a pertinent observation. She wrote: "It doesn't occur to people that when they were children they were indeed taught (the Bible) as a child ... The true depth of the (Christian) faith is likely to be something they've never encountered ... they reflexively think about Christianity like children, because they haven't had a fresh thought about it since childhood," (ibid.).

People in that frame of mind put Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John aside with Dr. Seuss and Mother Goose in order to get on with the real world. Thinking that way about the four gospels has fewer intellectual credentials than the idea that storks bring babies.

Each gospel deliberately teaches a subversive, life-giving theology by the way it tells the story of Jesus' life. Block by block, e.g., Mark gradually builds up in our minds a picture of Jesus that is sufficient to the realities of the world as we know it and sufficient to the realities of God as we do not yet know Him. Since January 9 of this year, I have spent about 6½ hours on 63 verses of Mark's gospel, and I have left far more unsaid that could be said. Let's take a minute and review some of the highlights.

In Mark 1:15 Mark told us the heart of Jesus' preaching. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is near." Whenever we hear about the kingdom of God, two words need to come at once to mind: authority and love. The kingdom of God means God's exercise of authority over ever-increasing circles of human life in love. As His love and authority begin to hold sway over our lives, He begins to set right all that mars and threatens to destroy human life and human happiness.

The word in Jesus' message that put the fat in the fire was the word near. If someone tells you that God's power to exercise authority over a nation's life is about to show itself in the public arena, the next thought in your mind will be, "Show me! Prove it!" Mark has told his story of Jesus in such a way as to demonstrate the presence of God's kingdom in the daily affairs of Israel. Think again of how he did that in chapter one and the first 17 verses of chapter two.

He asked four fishermen, Andrew, Peter, James, and John, to abandon their source of livelihood and attach themselves to Him as His disciples, and they did it. He persuaded and illuminated the consciences of the masses by His teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, and they were amazed. He broke the power of irrational evil over a human personality by virtue of His command, and his reputation spread like wildfire. By a touch He dismissed a fever from an old lady's body. He got the undivided attention of an entire fishing village. He then declared that what He had done in Capernaum must not be confined to Capernaum; it served a model of what He had a mission to make happen elsewhere. In an act of love an authority He touched and healed an unclean leper, who represented the dregs of Jewish society.

Then, in chapter two in an event that began to turn official opinion against Him He spoke with godlike authority and forgave a person's sins. Last Sunday, when Jesus dined with the down-and-out, He made it painfully clear that forgiveness and wholeness belonged to the exercise of God's love and power in the world and were meant for anyone who wanted it.

Block by block, Mark gradually builds up in our minds a picture of Jesus' authority. Block by block, Mark gradually builds up in our minds a picture of what life will look like when God has extended His love and authority over all human life. Now, the next five verses put in another building block in Mark's subversive, life-giving portrait of Jesus. Let's look together at the new challenge to Jesus in verse 18.

Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"

Do you remember what Mark told us in Mark 2:6-7: Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Jesus in His wonderful ability to read people spoke directly to their unexpressed thoughts.

After the dinner at Levi's house, He did not have to read their thoughts. They did not keep their thoughts to themselves this time. Neither did they say them to Jesus' face. They cornered Andrew, Peter, James, and John and (perhaps in an effort to intimidate them) expressed their objections to Jesus' choice of company. They did it in the form of a question. "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

Here in verse 18 we have another question about Jesus' behavior. Now, when people ask you lots of questions, they either want to learn, or they are having doubts about you. In any case verse 18 does not tell us who asked this question. It does tell us that whoever it was did not go to the disciples; they went straight to Jesus.

Fasting was part of an observant Jew's piety. More pointedly, John the Baptist and his disciples practiced fasting. Jesus and His disciples did not. Why not? It was a fair question. It was His answer that floored people then and floors people now. Listen to verse 19. Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them."

Suddenly, unexpectedly, we catch a whiff of the joy that permeates the Gospel of Mark. It is as if Jesus had said, "I am here. Let the party begin." Really, He said it even better than that. It is as if Jesus had said, "Do people fast at weddings? The Bridegroom is here, and I am the Bridegroom. Let the party begin." It even goes beyond that. He was saying to the people around Him, "I am here. Let the party begin, and, you who are fasting, you too, come join the party!"

Partying is what got Jesus in trouble in the episode of verses 15-17. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples. It sounds to me like a dinner party. Never mind that they belonged to a despised segment of first-century Jewish culture. I guarantee you they knew how to party. When Jesus healed the paralytic He had forgiven, we can hear the joy in people when Mark says in verse 12, This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

What I am about to say does not appear to have been part of Mark's purpose. However, within ther broader context of the New Testament, the language here elicits a further reflection. If Jesus is the Bridegroom, who is the lucky girl? Who is the bride? If "bride" refers to those He invited to the party, then the bride includes tax collectors and "sinners," forgiven and healed paralytics, cleansed lepers, and delivered demoniacs. It sounds like He might invite almost anyone to the party, doesn't it?

Jesus was not trying to rid Judaism of fasting, and His saying did not discourage Christians later on from fasting as a spiritual discipline. Instead, He was trying to say in dramatic action, "When the kingdom of God has asserted itself over all human life, this is what it will be like – forgiveness, cleansing, healing, wholeness and unbroken joy."

Until then, we have only short-lived vignettes of the kingdom of God – enough to give us hope, but not enough to satisfy our souls. Vignettes do not last. The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them. No, of course not. "But," says Jesus in verse 20, "the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast."

Such ominous words so early in the story of Jesus! "The bridegroom will be taken from them." What could He mean? Here in the old creation the music stops, the flowers fade, and the guests go home. Only 65 verses into the Gospel of Mark, and we have the first intimation of the death of the Bridegroom.

Artist Holman Hunt did a painting he called "The Shadow of Death." He shows Jesus at work, plying the trade He had learned from Joseph. It is the end of the day, and Jesus has just straightened up from His work. He does what many of us do after leaning over for a long time. He straightens up and stretches out His arms. The late-afternoon rays of the sun come slanting in through the open doors of the carpenter's workshop and cast upon the workshop wall the shadow of the stretching Man. It is a shadow unmistakably in the form of a cross.

Hunt's artistry in oils and Mark's artistry in words coincide in meaning. The cross cast a shadow over all of Jesus' life. In spite of this Mark calls the story he tells of Jesus good news. In spite of this joy pervades the Gospel of Mark as fragrance pervades a room. May it pervade our life together here as well.

1 Peter 1:8 encourages us to think it will, when the Apostle Peter said of another congregation, Though you have not seen him (Jesus), you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. It sounds like they participated in the joy of the Bridegroom. How might we do that?

First of all, what joy might we reasonably hope to experience in our private lives? As we make our way through the old creation's cycle of laughter and tears, of sowing and reaping, of birth and death, I hope we all find much joy in family and work and recreation and hobbies and friendships. The piercing joy of the Bridegroom will grow more fleeting in the daily routine, but it may return in the intimacy of a small group or as you listen to praise music or read scripture. At times, unbidden and unexplained, joy may wash over you in the midst of your day. I hope it does.

By the way, if you are by nature melancholy or pessimistic, such moments will come less often. Don't try to force your feelings; that will only frustrate you and make you feel phony. Instead, teach your mind to focus on lovely, pure, and just thoughts – teach your mind to focus on Christ. Give yourself time to think a new way, and the joy will come. If you are by nature cheery, don't tell other people to cheer up. It is not that easy for them. Instead, teach your mind to focus on Christ so that your highest joy comes from Him.

Second of all, what joy might we reasonably hope to experience in our communal life? I can show you why we may reasonably hope to experience joy, private and communal, if you will think where all joy comes from. Joy is a flower that grows only in the soil of love. Tell me what you love, and I can tell you what gives you joy. Love mutual funds and on-line trading, and mutual funds and on-line trading will give you joy. Love clothes and clothes will give you joy. Love God and God will give you joy. Love God more than anything else, and God will give you more joy than anything else. Love anything else more than God, and your joy will begin to fade, because you and I were made to love God more than anything else. Other things cannot hold our love.

Thus loving God more than anything else brings us back to the primacy of communal worship in Christian experience. Of all the circumstances our lives move through in this world, this is the only one that is structured around expressions of God's love to us and of our love for God. Here baptism, Communion, and the ministry of the word embody God's unfailing love for us. Here the praises of our lips, prayer, obedience, giving, and love for each other embody our love for God. Nothing else on earth is like this.

To be away from here is to distance ourselves from inexpressible and glorious joy. To be here does not guarantee it, but what happens here summons our scattered energies within reach of the great and strange exchange between the Bridegroom and His bride, which wakens love and may raise it to unexpected intensity. From waking love comes waking joy. From love's unexpected intensity comes inexpressible and glorious joy.

So come! Come here every week! Come expecting Jesus to meet us in this place. Come expecting to receive His mercy and His grace. Come expecting joy. Sing, pray, and give with love in your heart. Sing, pray, and give with joy in your heart. These brief, shining moments together become at their best vignettes of what all human life will be like when the kingdom of God has asserted itself fully.