Joy Comes in the Morning – February 13, 2011 – CATM Anniversary
Well…Happy Anniversary to Church at the Mission! Hard to believe it’s been 13 years since we formally launched as CATM. Actually we didn’t have a name when we started.
Two different members of the mission’s Development department called Kerry and I separately to ask for a name for the church because they needed to put something about it in the mission’s newsletter.
Kerry and I and Michael Krause and Rick Tobias had talked about everything to do with the church when we were developing it on paper, but we hadn’t come up with a name.
So separately and without knowing it Kerry and I told the Development staff member that, “We’ll…we’re, uh, the church at the mission”. And the then the name just kinda stuck.
Of course CATM grew out of two other churches that had started in around 1987 – Cabbagetown Community Church that met here for years. And Church on the Street, a church that was created to serve street youth and others connected to the street. Jan and I were part of that church.
So in one way we’re 13 years old. In another way we’re (count with fingers) 24 years old. In another way, actually, we’re 115 years old. Anyone know why? This year marks the 115th anniversary of Yonge Street Mission. Cool, eh?
So…Thanks be to God for His abiding faithfulness and love for us for 13, 24…115 years.
God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.
This has been a remarkable week in the Middle East. Egypt seemed to be teetering on the brink of civil war or violence that could have had a cascading effect across the country.
Calls for the resignation of the dictator Mubarek combined with diplomatic backroom maneuvering by the US and other countries resulted in Mubarek stepping down as president.
The Toronto Star reported this: “The jubilation that erupted with Hosni Mubarak’s resignation as president Friday lasted well into the night. Egyptians danced and sang their freedom until they were drunk with it. “After three decades of abuse at the hands of Mubarak’s police state, they surprised even themselves by taking back their country. And they were wild with joy.
““Finally, we are free. Finally, we can breathe,” said Mohammed Hanid, 32, literally jumping for joy among the tens of thousands in downtown Tahrir Square, ground zero for 18 days of protests that chased Mubarak from power.”
We rejoice along with the people of Egypt at their new-found freedom, and we should pray for a peaceful transition of power and free elections in that ancient land.
Shackles come off, and there is joy. Freedom becomes a real possibility, and there is joy.
Liberty moves from being in the realm of a dream, an aspiration, to a place of being almost able to taste it...and there is joy because liberty tastes good.
Today I mean for us to spend some time meditating on joy. Are we up for that? And joy, God’s joy and our joy, are truly important aspects of worship. What is our joy? Well, the best way to get to the answer to that question is to look at God’s joy.
Now the joy in Egypt has come after much sadness. Years and years of oppression, no freedom of the press, politically movitated murders, police acting with no accountability. Really terrible grief and sadness for the Egyptian people.
There is always something unwanted, some great sadness that comes before joy, something that makes joy sweeter, something that gives a contrast between the way things were before there was joy and the way thing are now since joy has come.
We know that God is revealed in the Holy Bible as Father, Son and Holy Spirit…that is the very identity of God.
A good answer to the question: “Who is God?” is “God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit – three in one.” Let’s take a look at the sadness and joy of God.
The Sadness and Joy of the Father
What was the sadness of the Father? After Creation, after saying that all He has created was good, after God’s perfect creation including humanity had come, sin also came. Genesis Chapter 3 recounts how a perfect creation was marred by human sin.
Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
So shame and fear and eventually all forms of sin and destruction reigned. God and humanity became alien to each other, alienated from the fellowship and intimacy that God always wanted.
That was the Father’s great sadness. And how great a sadness. Pause.
Now the joy of the Father was in knowing that He had a plan. A plan to fix every last thing that was broken due to human sin.
A plan that He had since before creating anything, that would mean that humanity, the very top of His creation, would once again be able to dwell in the garden with Him.
No matter how bad bad was to get, God would make a way home to the garden for you and for me. That’s the sadness and joy of the Father.
The Sadness and Joy of the Son
Now the sadness of the Son was connected to this. You see, the Son, come down to earth, incarnated as a baby in a manger…the Son got to see face to face all kinds of human evil.
This is a remarkable part of the Christian story. God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, though separated from us, was not aloof from us.
The plan of God all along had been that the Son would lay aside His majesty, His glory…and would walk the roads we walk and struggle with the things we struggle with and suffer like we suffer.
And so the Son did just this. And the Son’s sorrow was made complete in His suffering. He who knew no sin became sin for us. He was arrested and mocked and whipped and falsely tried and ultimately murdered on a cross.
But even as Jesus carried his cross to the place of his execution, His joy was on His mind. He endured the cross for one reason:
Hebrews 12:2 “(Jesus) who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame”.
What was Jesus joy? What could possibly come out of His tragic suffering and loss? Do you think it was because He knew He would end up back in heaven?
No, actually. It was because He knew that His actions, His suffering and death on the cross could lead to you joining Him back in heaven, when you believe that Jesus died for your sins, and after living life the way He lived it…putting others first, seeking God’s Kingdom, living not for ourselves but for God’s glory. Hallelujah.
The Sadness and Joy of the Holy Spirit
Before Jesus suffered, He promised He would send us the Holy Spirit, which He did on the day of Pentecost 50 days after His resurrection. When the Holy Spirit came as recorded in Acts chapter 2, the church exploded with power and grew incredibly quickly.
The Holy Spirit of God is called the third person of the Trinity. He is fully God and is that person of the Godhead who is present to us here on earth. God the Father sits in heaven with God the Son on His right hand. But God the Holy Spirit…He is here in this place. And He was present to the early church.
Now remember that sadness always goes before joy. There is a particular sadness that the Holy Spirit experiences. The Apostle Paul talks about this in the letter to the Ephesians:
Ephesians 4: 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
This is a lot closer to us than the story of Creation and the Fall. This is closer to us even that the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is sadness, here identified as grief, in the Holy Spirit.
Our distinct behaviours have an impact on the Holy Spirit. Bitterness is one of them. I found a good definition of bitterness.
“Bitterness is a frozen form of latent anger and resentment. Bitterness grows out of our refusal, to let go when someone or something is taken from us. Bitterness is being constantly hurt by a memory and is holding onto a hurt until it has a hold on you”. So bitterness grieves the Holy Spirit. Hmm.
Rage and anger are indicated too, as are the things they can lead to: brawling (or fighting) and slander, (telling lies about people to hurt them).
“Every form of malice”. Malice is desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another.
So these are things that grieve the Holy Spirit. When people, especially God’s people behave in ways that do not honour God, when they behave as though they were not redeemed, when they behave as though they do not have the Holy Spirit living in them, this grieves God.
The Holy Spirit’s joy is in our conduct… when the way we behave with each other is the way of love, the life of love, just like Christ’s love for you and me.
Look at this: 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
5:1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
The Holy Spirit’s joy is expressed in the fruit of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
So God’s joy is ultimately realized in the saving of a people, a people whose conduct and attitude reflects His own.
The joy in Egypt is already giving way to concerns about the future. They don’t have a lot of recent history with democracy.
There will be power struggles. There will be instability. That joy will give way to life as it happens to unfold. We wish and pray for the best for the country.
The joy that God gives is actually not dependent on any outward situation. It transcends all the ups and downs of life. Sometimes that joy breaks through real sadness.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time in recent weeks doing funeral pre-planning for my parents. Making decisions about final disposition of the remains of people you have loved all your life is not any fun at all. It can be overwhelmingly sad.
After spending hours with a funeral director a few weeks back I was in the washroom of the funeral home washing my hands, feeling very sad and really uneasy about my father’s failing health and what must inevitably come.
At the same time though I had such a profound sense of being held by God, of not in any way being alone in the process. And I just began to weep and thank God for holding me, thanking Him for giving me such a sense of His presence in the midst of great sadness.
I would call that joy in the midst of rough waters. I think our joy is that we are indeed held, safe in God’s hands, shielded from so much harm.
Our joy is in knowing that God sent His Son into the world in order to redeem our lives, to save us from sin, from ourselves and from the enemy of our souls, the devil. Our joy is in knowing that Christ has won the victory for us.
But that joy only first comes to us, again, after sorrow. Every Christian who celebrates what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, begins by first recognizing his or her own sin and that in fact it was that sin that led Jesus to the cross in the first place.
Sorrow over our sin leads us to repentance. We turn away from the darkness, we confess to God and often others what it is we have done wrong. And we experience forgiveness. We are cleansed. The sin that once bound us…God in His grace forgives us. The Scripture says”
Micah 7:18 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. 19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
And Isaiah 43:25 says: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more”.
Jesus Christ has won true freedom, true liberty for you and for me. He has forgiven our sins, removed our shackles and brought us into the glorious liberty of the children of God. He has given us His Holy Spirit. He has brought us back into relationship with the Father.
May our joy not be fleeting, may we not trust in things that rust. May our joy not be shallow, seeking happiness in things that fade. Let us never stop fixing our eyes upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. In His glorious name we pray. Amen.
