A survey of the ‘happiest nations’ show Afghanistan coming in dead last which shouldn’t surprise anyone. But close to it is Zimbabwe. The list varies by the measure used to judge happiness.
First century Israel the reason was quite clear. Rome was in charge even when it came to their faith. High priest became a political appointment. Even though he was deposed by in AD 15 his position remained so strong as to list his name with his family members who came after (Trites 65).
Paul was in Rome, in prison possibly even Tullianum or Mamertines, a dungeon that included a lower entered only by rope. It was a place of death, not punishment. It is a place that makes the worst you have heard of Turkish or Mexican prisons lights of hope. Dark, dank, dismal, and deadly because for Roman prisons this was usually the last stop before death.
Yet, Paul saw the light of Christ shining in world. The Holy Spirit blew fresh, new life, across Asia Minor and Southern Europe. The hope that Jesus offered would continue no matter what was ahead for Paul. He knew this was not his last stop. Paul knew that Jesus was the life-given and that the life He gave could not be taken away by Rome or anyone else. That is JOY.
An oft repeated theme in Christmas movies is the lack of Christmas joy. We are told that it is the magic which makes Santa’s sleigh fly and various other half-truths. According to this story arc, when hope fails, Christmas is in danger.
But joy isn’t happiness. Happiness is situational. It can be driven by endorphins and presents. It flows from feeling good for whatever reason. “Joy transcends present circumstances (Fee 46)” and the joy Paul received from this church is stressed in the word order that translates “with joy the prayer making (ibid.).” In fact, "Every time Paul thinks of his friends in Philippi, he is filled with joy. The entire letter throbs with personal intensity (Dunnam and Ogilvie 253)."
Joy isn’t regulated by one’s blood-sugar level, the size of a present, whether someone answers your text or not. Paul is in a horrendous place, yet he seeks God on their behalf because of the joy he feels for their continued support. His “hardships made him better, not bitter (Lightner V2 649).”
JOY BREAKS WITH THE USUAL
Joy also flies in the face of the world’s expectation. At least 14 times Paul uses the word ‘joy’ or ‘rejoice’. Philippi is unique for Paul. He started churches from synagogues but there were not enough Jewish men to form a synagogue in Philippi. He causes an uproar by casting a demon out of a slave girl and interfering with the commerce of the city. They are taken by the authorities, beaten, and put in prison. While there they are freed by an earthquake and explain to the jailer the way of salvation.
The oddity of this church with Lydia, a wealthy woman, a slave girl who had been possessed, and a jailer who came to know Christ must have seemed a strange group to the rest of that Roman colony. Yet, to these and the rest Paul emphasizes his ‘joy’ for the church by the word order, “with joy the prayer making” sets the joy apart as key in what Paul wants to communicate.
Jovie, played by Zooey Deschanel sings but not in front of people and it is in this context that Buddy explains, “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear (Favreau).” It’s not till she challenged what was her normal and start singing in front of the crowd on a New York Street that Christmas is saved.
Consider how John also defied the world’s expectation. Luke lists names and titles and places of importance in the world but “the word of God appears among the powerful and prestigious, but not to them…John lives in a place with no name ‘in the wilderness’ (Edwards 106).” In fact, to hear John one had to leave their comfortable places and go out to the wilderness a place in which Israel found trial, grace, and the hand of God.
CHANGE IS REQUIRED
Luke’s introduction of John is the longest in the gospels. In fact, it is two times as long as that by Josephus (Edward 101). He calls for a baptism of repentance which is hard thing to reconcile in Jewish thought because such a thing is not found anywhere. This isn’t the baptism a convert to Judaism would undergo.
"The seriousness of his call to repentance was to be met by a willingness on the part of Jews to submit to the public act of baptism. It was a strong message that demanded a clear moral response and radical change (Trites 66).”
The baptism which John brings is not “yet of faith, but of sorrow for sin; a symbol of cleansing from all that is wrong (Childress 31).” It’s fulness would be found in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
Paul prays “that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment” v. 9. The word Paul chooses for ‘love’ is agape. The church took this obscure word and elevated it to a place of honor for it points to the spontaneous and undeserved mercy, grace, and love God shows us even while we lived in rebellion.
Paul isn’t praying for an emotional, gushy, and blind love but for a thoughtful choice to love others with knowledge and discernment. The Philippian church would have to be warned about false teachers and heretical theology. Paul is concerned they might fall into such things, “if, in the interest of being loving, they were uncritically to accept everything that these teachers were presenting (Ellsworth 19)."
Typical for a Christmas movie the family comes together, Santa gets the presents delivered, people fall in love, and the rest of the ‘feel good’ things that happen. For John, the Baptizer not so much. He runs afoul of the political powers and is beheaded. Paul is either set free and goes to Spain or is condemned and beheaded. Either way he and John share the same future.
I want to end by recounting C. S. Lewis vision of God’s Kingdom as expressed in The Final Battle. We are treated with a sense of the ‘joy’ that awaits us who believe.
"The things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before (Lewis 165)."
Let’s pray
WORKS CITED
Childress, Gavin. Opening up Luke’s Gospel. Leominster: Day One Publications, 2006. Print. Opening Up Commentary.
Dunnam, Maxie D., and Lloyd J. Ogilvie. Galatians / Ephesians / Philippians / Colossians / Philemon. Vol. 31. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1982. Print. The Preacher’s Commentary Series.
Edwards, James R. The Gospel according to Luke. Ed. D. A. Carson. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.;
Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos, 2015. Print. The Pillar New Testament Commentary.
Ellsworth, Roger. Opening up Philippians. Leominster: Day One Publications, 2004. Print. Opening Up Commentary.
Fee, Gordon D. Philippians. Vol. 11. Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 1999. Print. The IVP New Testament Commentary Series.
Lewis, C. S. The Last Battle. New York: Macmillan, 1956. Print.
Lightner, Robert P. “Philippians.” The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985. Print.
Trites, Allison A., William J. Larkin. Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 12: The Gospel of Luke and Acts. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006. Print.
