Joy in the Journey (41) - Rejoicing in the absence of Jesus

What are the things that give you joy? Where is that joy grounded? Those are important questions in the light of our present situation. So much that has been taken from us or denied to us were legitimate sources of God-given joy - people we have known and loved, whose absence we have felt keenly; places that have been sacred spaces of fellowship and support. There is something right and proper about such joy and the praise to God it yields. Which makes the separation all the harder to bear.

Whilst we properly lament such absences, there are resources in the Bible that help to re-align and deepen our thinking in significant ways. Luke 24:50-52 is one such incident.

Jesus’ disciples had spent 3 years in his company, in his love and in the joy that radiated from him. His death was a wrenching experience, collapsing their joys and closing their hopes, so it seemed. Which made his resurrection the most sublime re-birth of the deepest joy - their Lord and Saviour was alive! Death had been overcome; he was back with them and nothing had the power to steal him from them ever again.

But in the final verses of Luke's gospel we see him leaving them once more and for a far longer period. We might expect to see them perplexed and even inconsolable; was this one more unexpected denial of their joys? In the most emphatic terms it was not: "he left them and...they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy."

They rejoiced that he was absent from them. After he was taken from them, hidden from them, no longer physically present, no longer within reach and completely out of sight, they were filled with inexpressible joy.

That isn't, in any sense, a lesson in stiff-upper-lip emotional shutdown. When loved ones and life's blessings are lost to us it is entirely proper to grieve. Their joy wasn’t rooted in his absence but in what that absence meant: he had ascended into heaven as the Priest whose sacrifice for sin had been effective and whose blessing would ever remain on them. He had ascended as King over all and would continually govern all things for the sake of his people and for his purposes of grace for the world. That’s why they were able to rejoice in his absence.

And that present, high-priestly reign of King Jesus has power to enter our experiences with real power - not as a denial of sorrow and anguish but as the living presence of our loyal and loving Lord and as the certain promise of his consummated victory over all powers of chaos and darkness.

As we give thanks to God for every good and perfect gift that comes from him, and as we mourn their absence, our joy is founded upon and rooted in our ascended Lord Jesus. He is the one who raises his hands in blessing over his people. He is the risen Lord, enthroned at the right hand of the majesty on high. The hope we have in him has entered the inner sanctuary, behind the curtain, because that is where he himself is, on our behalf. And from there, from the very throne of God, flow rivers of joy, unspeakably glorious.

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With joy we meditate the grace

Of our High Priest above;

His heart is made of tenderness,

And overflows with love.

Touched with a sympathy within,

He knows our feeble frame;

He knows what sore temptations mean,

For He has felt the same.

But spotless, innocent, and pure,

The great Redeemer stood,

While Satan's fiery darts He bore,

And did resist to blood.

He in the days of feeble flesh

Poured out His cries and tears;

And, though exalted, feels afresh

What every member bears.

He'll never quench the smoking flax,

But raise it to a flame;

The bruisèd reed He never breaks,

Nor scorns the meanest name.

Then let our humble faith address

His mercy and His power:

We shall obtain delivering grace

In the distressing hour.

(Isaac Watts, 1674-1748)