Title: Getting Rid of the Delight Deficit
Text: Luke 24:36-53
Thesis: Followers of Christ are Good-News people whose lives are marked by joy.
The Season of Easter Series: When Jesus Shows Up
During the Season of Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Christ as he shows up in unusual and unexpected ways.
After Easter we saw how Jesus understood the need for his followers to see him… seeing is believing. In seeing Jesus, Thomas’ doubts were allayed.
Then we saw how Jesus walked with two of his followers… Just as Jesus accompanied them on their journey, Jesus accompanies us on our journeys as well. The Christian life is going the distance with Jesus as a companion.
On the fourth Sunday of Easter we saw how Jesus knew he needed to encourage his followers to stay the course, so to speak. The Christian life is more than going the distance. It is also going the distance with Jesus - in the right direction.
Last week we saw how Jesus showed up in dramatic ways but accomplished his will through diligence.
Today is the Sixth Sunday of Easter. This week we will reflect on the text where Jesus “showed up” to bless his followers and to encourage them by showing them that their faith in him was not misplaced. We will focus on the unique post-resurrection appearance effect Jesus’ had on his followers… “While they still did not believe it, because of joy and amazement…” It was the joy of, “I don’t believe this is happening!”
Introduction
In his book, Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis told the story of his conversion from atheist to Christianity. After what he described as God’s unrelenting approach, he gave in, knelt and prayed and admitted that God was God. He called that moment his conversion to Theism, not to Christianity. In that experience he understood that God was God and as God, to be obeyed. He began going to church merely as a matter of acknowledging that he now believed in God. His conversion to Christianity came later when he suddenly came to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. He wrote, “I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo, I did.” (C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy, P. 237)
He went on to briefly describe the joy that he experienced in that moment as the joy a hiker who is hopelessly lost in the woods and suddenly comes upon a signpost pointing to the road. It is the joy of the person who swings from desperation to discovery and hope.
The person who had thought himself lost who discovers he is not and experiences a profound sense of relief as joy surges through those dark places where just moments before desperation had lurked waiting to swallow him up in despair.
But that is not what Jesus’ disciples were feeling that night when he showed up for a bite of fish. They had seen no signposts of hope. They were mired in doubt and discouragement.
I. Doubt uproots joy.
Jesus stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?” Luke24:37-38
Doubt and despair uproot hope and joy.
Casey at the Bat is a poem written in 1888 by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. It was first published in the San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888 and later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in his vaudeville performances. The Mudville team is down by two runs. It is the last inning of the game and all seems to be lost because there was little hope that mighty Casey would get to bat. But then after a couple of fluke plays Casey, the notorious homerun hitter, was up with a man on second and a man on third and his homerun would mean a win for the Mudville Nine.
Hope sprung eternal when Casey went to the plate… so confident of a home run he refused to swing at the first two pitches because they did not suit him. But the crowd was not worried. The mighty Casey was at the bat.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.
It seems in life that hope and joy can be uprooted in a moment by despair and disbelief.
There was no joy in Mudville in our text today. The disciples were not a happy lot. The mood in the room was dark and gloomy. Mighty Casey had struck out! Jesus was dead! The game was over!
Not only does doubt tend to displace joy, negative thinking displaces joy and it would seem that there is no shortage of negativity going around these days. There is a definite deficit of delight in life. When it comes to joy we are bleeding red ink.
Doubt, despair and hopelessness has uprooted our joy. We are being inundated with reports about the mind-boggling, incalculably staggering national debt. There is no way to sugar-coat it. Inside the latest issue of Time Magazine are all kinds of joy up rooters like the US debt is at 99% of our Gross Domestic Product (the total market value of goods and services produced in a given year). And 31% of our national debt is foreign-owned. There is no silver-lining. There is no ray of hope. There is no joy in Mudville.
The wearisome news of floods and tornados and war has uprooted our joy. While we breathe a collective sigh of relief here in Colorado, one article in the latest Time Magazine posed the question, “Who Controls The Mighty River?” The article that followed tracked the Mississippi River watershed and states that “The system is under the most stress it’s been under since it was designed. And so far, it isn’t working.” The dams and levees and dikes and diversions are not controlling the river and the river has over-run its banks and has inundated community after community. (Michael Grunwald, Taming a Wild River, Time, May 23, 2011, pp. 24-29) And what of war? There is no end to it. The cover story on Time Magazine this week is Why We’re Stuck with Pakistan. (Aryn Baker, Why We’re Stuck with Pakistan, Time, May 23, 2011, pp. 36-42) There is no joy in Mudville.
Perhaps Pastor Harold Camping has the right idea… the best way out is for Jesus to come and snatch us all away before the world comes to an end. However delightful that may be for the chosen few, there will be no joy in Mudville for those who are left behind.
Can you see how negativity and news can uproot a person’s joy? I think joy should be the norm, not the exception. I think the followers of Christ should be running a surplus of joy and a deficit of despair and doubt and hopelessness.
Jesus said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:9-11
In our story we see that just as despair and doubt and hopelessness can uproot our joy, joy can dispel doubt and despair.
II. Joy dispels doubt.
When Jesus had said this he showed them his hands and his feet. And while there were did not believe it, because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. Luke 24:40-43
During the time when the disciples watched Jesus die on the cross and witnessed his entombment and his post-resurrection appearances in which he simply showed up unannounced and that moment when they finally decided he had in fact risen from the dead, they were a dejected and motley crew. They were discouraged and defeated. They were living in fear and despair. Joy was not their experience. You could say that they were running in the red joy wise. They were experiencing a delight deficit.
I suspect the people who live in Joplin, Missouri may well be running a delight deficit today. While on one hand there may be a sense of relief and gratitude to have survived the tornado, those who have lost loved ones or who cannot locate their loved ones may well be running a delight deficit.
On Friday the number of missing from the category EF Tornado that tore through Joplin, MO last Sunday was lowered to 156 on Friday. A list of missing persons that once tallied nearly 1,500 has gradually and painstakingly been reduced as persons on that list have been found safe. The state of Missouri has placed the number who have died at 126.
There are few heart-warming stories of the lost being found. Seventy-five year old Sally Adams was sitting in a wooden chair outside her destroyed home holding a cat when a reporter told her she was on the missing person list. The AP story reported that she laughed and said, “Get me off of there!”
A New York Times reporter told of a Red Cross volunteer who cried for joy as she was able to cross off one woman’s name. “She’s been found!” the volunteer said, “We’ve got to update the list.” (A.G. Sulzberger and Monica Davey, Number of Missing from Tornado Is Lowered to 156, The New York Times, May 27, 2011)
The people in Joplin who were running in the red joy wise and experiencing a delight deficit are suddenly transformed and surprised by joy when they learn a loved one is alive and safe. I think that is maybe something of the joy the followers of Christ felt when they began to process the news that Jesus was in fact raised from the dead. “He’s been found! We’ve got to update the list!”
It is the joy of the woman lost in the wilderness for thirty days living on snow and shivering from the cold who is found by rescuers. It is the joy of the solo hiker who falls and finds himself seriously injured and resigns himself to a slow and miserable death alone on some rocky mountainside when a rescue chopper clears the overhang and hovers over him. It is the joy of the parents whose 4 year old daughter was abducted from the Colorado Muslim Society Mosque on Friday afternoon but received her back two and a half hours later. It is the joy of a parent who rushes to the hospital in the middle of the night and hears the surgeon say, “He’s going to be alright.”
As we come to the end of our text we see that Jesus is leaving them again but it is a different leaving. This leaving is life changing in a good way. Now they felt hope and hope fueled joy.
III. Hope Implants Joy.
While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple praising God. Luke 24:51-53
Just as we can easily visualize something being uprooted, we can also visualize something being implanted. When we use the term implanted we see something being set firmly. We see something that is so anchored in concrete that it is immovable.
I understand that a dental implant is a titanium “root” devise used in dentistry for restorations that resemble a tooth or a group of teeth. They are called root-form end osseous implants. They appear similar to an actual tooth root and when they are placed within the (jaw) bone the jaw bone accepts and osseo integrates the titanium post. In other words the jaw bone grows around it so that the implant looks and feels like a natural tooth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_implant)
It is firmly implanted. Implants don’t click when you talk or come loose when you eat a chocolate or fly out of your mouth when you sneeze. Implants chew taffy and bite apples and masticate steak and they look great. And you can have them for the price of a modest home in as small Midwest town.
My point is that the newly implanted tooth is not going anywhere.
The new hope and joy of the disciples was firmly fixed, i.e., implanted, when they witnessed the crucified, dead, buried and risen Christ ascend into heaven and heard the angels assuring them (Acts 1:11), “Just as you stand here watching Jesus ascend into heaven, he will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Their hope and their joy was firmly fixed. Nothing would shake them ever again. Hope gave them an unconquerable joy. The political climate did not rock their boat. The economy did not send them into despair. The threat of martyrdom did not sway their resolve to follow Christ. On one occasion, in Acts 16, Paul and Silas were arrested, beaten and imprisoned and the story line says at midnight they were praying and singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening to them. There was joy in Mudville.
Conclusion:
I do not mean to imply that the joy of the Lord is a giddy joy. But if someone were to come up to me following the service and hand me a winning lottery ticket… I could shred it and throw it on the ground and stomp on it and grind it under the heel of my shoe. Or I could and probably would start whooping and hollering. I would dance from side to side and I would say things like, “I don’t believe it! I can’t believe I have the winning lottery ticket!”
I think that’s what was happening when Jesus showed up. I think that is what the bible is describing when it says, “They did not believe because of joy and amazement.” How could this be? But it is!
That is how we might feel when we hear the words, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And we really are!” I John 3:1
There is enough bad news and enough sadness going around to sink us in the deepest sea of despair. But if we are in Christ there sufficient grace and hope to erase any delight deficit and replace it with a surplus of joy.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus ou
