Editorial August 6, 2018 Issue

The fulfillment of Jesus’ joy—a joy that never wanes

Barbara Vining

Several decades ago, a fellow worker in a local community organization exclaimed when I cheerfully answered her telephone call, “What makes you so upbeat and joyful every day?”

I was surprised by her comment, because an exuberant delight just simply inhabited my heart. It wasn’t determined by the ups and downs of daily human experience. It came from what I was learning every day about God’s great goodness and the wonderful power it has to make one feel worthy and loved, and to bring healing into one’s life and the lives of others. It was actually God’s joy I was feeling—as expressed in this verse in the Bible: “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17)—and it still inhabits my heart every day, even on days when the going is tough.

Recently, as I was studying the weekly Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly, I was deeply moved by Christ Jesus’ words in his tender prayer for his followers then and now in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John. His prayer affirmed that his followers were eternally at one with God and with him, and that his work for humanity would continue through them. Then he said, “These things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (verse 13). Certainly, the deep, spiritual joy that was in Jesus, and which he longed to have fulfilled in every human heart, was what God feels for His creation. That Jesus prayed for this to be fulfilled in each of us blew me away. It inspired me to understand it better and to nurture it within myself more than ever.

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Bible Lens—August 6–12, 2018