Joy This Pentecost | They Turned Their Eyes Toward Heaven

St. Joseph's Chapel Tympanum, College of the Holy Cross

I will go to the altar of God, 

to God who gives joy to my youth.

During this school year, I had the privilege to visit a friend who is a visiting art professor at the College of the Holy Cross. After he generously treated me to lunch on campus, we walked over to St. Joseph's Chapel on a beautiful afternoon.

In looking up at the tympanum (i.e. the triangular area often decorated with sculptures at the top of a chapel building), he helped me focus on the special artistry that features a risen and ascended Jesus (most often it's either a scene from the nativity or the crucifixion).

Captivated by this depiction of the victorious King Jesus, I'm coming back to it again as we get ready to celebrate Pentecost this weekend. We are invited to worship this joyful and generous King in light of the words in Latin that provide the base for the tympanum:

Et introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum 

qui laetificat iuventutem meam.

I will go to the altar of God, to God 

who gives joy to my youth.

Joy doesn’t rise from comfort 

but from conviction, 

not from absence of sorrow 

but from trust that God’s future 

is breaking into present.

My time in St. Joseph's Chapel continues to be a space the Spirit of God has used to welcome my awe and worship on College Hill, one of the "seven hills" of Worcester, the City on Seven Hills. 

The view of the tympanum's visuals and verbiage, along with the crescendo of ancient and fresh hymns being orchestrated and sung within, have continued to resonate deeply with me, bringing to life the verses I have returned to the most during the past year:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come?

My help comes from the LORD ... 

+ Psalm 121:1-2

Along with Psalm 121, these words from a priest below also continue to challenge me to pray for joy that is a defiant celebration of conviction and courage in the face of suffering, to "turn my eyes toward heaven."

Unless we are anchored in something 

beyond the here and now, 

chances are we will drown 

in the present moment.

The Gospels describe Jesus 

praying in different ways, 

but sometimes they simply say, 

"He turned His eyes toward heaven!" 

(ex. Mark 7:34; John 17:1) 

The same expression is used 

of other great faith figures 

(ex. see Stephen in Acts 7:55) 

and it's used of them 

precisely at those times 

when the forces of madness 

are threatening to kill them. 

When the world around them 

is going mad, 

they "turn their eyes toward heaven."

Prayer is a question of

unity and surrender —

of uniting one's will with 

someone else and

surrendering one's will to that other.

Prayer is the desire

to be in union with someone,

especially in union with

that other's will ...

surrender of one's will to

a higher power, to God.

Each of us needs to find

our own way of doing this 

if we are to cope with the forces

that threaten to drown us ...

We will always be adrift,

until we, like Jesus, regularly 

"turn our eyes toward heaven."

+ Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, 

"Prayer: Our Deepest Longing," 

pgs. 41-42

If you are feeling bombarded by the madness in the darkness, I hope the tympanum and these words above help turn your eyes toward heaven, and that in looking up, you discover King Jesus looking at you with joy love, courage, compassion, and strength. And perhaps, like I sense Jesus has been inviting me to do, you will find a place where you can do what the Latin phrase says underneath St. Joseph's Chapel's tympanum:

I will go to the altar of God,

to God who gives joy to my youth.

With anticipation and joy,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Miriam's Song | Advent Joy: Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Sing.

Miriam's Song by JJ

Joy doesn’t rise from comfort 

but from conviction, 

not from absence of sorrow 

but from trust that God’s future 

is breaking into the present. ...

Joy is the sound of survival

(even in desert spaces).

+ PC: Recovering Advent

This third week of Advent is focused on joy, and this past weekend, we looked at this theme through the shout for joy of Isaiah 35, and then considered what our own song might be today:

1 The desert and the parched land
will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 

2 it will burst into bloom; 

it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy ... 

4 say to those with fearful hearts, 

“Be strong, do not fear; 

your God will come, 

He will come with vengeance; 

with divine retribution 

He will come to save you.” 

5 Then will the eyes of the blind 

be opened and

the ears of the deaf unstopped. 

6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, 

and the mute tongue shout for joy. 

Water will gush forth in the wilderness 

and streams in the desert. 

7 The burning sand will become a pool, 

the thirsty ground bubbling springs. ... 

10 and those the Lord has rescued will return. 

They will enter Zion with singing; 

everlasting joy will crown their heads. 

Gladness and joy will overtake them, 

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

In this passage, we read of multiple shouts, and singing with gladness, and joy overtaking people who have experienced the desert and shared sorrows along the way. They were invited to dare to believe that there is a song of resurrection even in the places once thought too dead to blossom. And so are we.

Some hymns and songs that have been shouts for us during this season in the life of Emmaus City Church have been:

+ Creator of the Stars of Night
+ Glory! Let There Be Peace

+ We Three Kings (We're Not Lost)
+ Come Thou Redeemer of the Earth

Due to the timing of the message and these melodies above, I smiled even more at God's providence because the next day after preaching on Isaiah 35's stirring shock of images and prophecies, I read these words in one of my favorite reads of 2025: Life is Hard. God is Good. Let's Dance: Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad:

The Song You Will Sing

We start with a lady singing (in a desert, once seemingly facing desertion and death, but now experiencing deliverance), and then flash back to a misty morning many years earlier along a river. 

A young girl is there. 

She's very scared.

She's standing still at the water's edge.

She's watching something.

And she's crying.

We see that she's watching a little basket, floating on the water among the reeds. Inside the basket is her little brother. He's just three months old. His mother and father didn't know what to do with him, because they are living as the slaves of a fearsome, genocidal ruler. He fears the growth of the Israelite population in his land, and he has a policy: all Israelite baby boys must be immediately drowned in the Nile.

The family tried hiding him. For months, they tried. But now they had no choice but a move of utter desperation: they were hoping somehow God would take care of him. The girl, Miriam, "stood at a distance to see what would happen to him" (Exodus 2:4).

Then things got worse.

In modern times, imagine the genocidal ruler is Adolf Hitler, and of all the people who could walk by at that moment ... we see Hitler's daughter. 

The story is over.

Not only will the baby be drowned 

but the whole family 

may have to die as punishment.

But pharaoh's daughter, the princess, opens the basket and feels sorry for the crying baby. Our young heroine, Miriam, makes a genius move: "Should I find a Hebrew woman to be the baby's nurse?" she asks the princess. The princess says yes, and even says she'll pay Miriam for helping. Miriam walks home, carrying her little brother, Moses, back safely from the reeds. Can you imagine how she felt? What was she thinking then? How did that just happen?

The rest of Moses' story (see Exodus 3-13) tells of how he went on to become part of the tyrant's own household; how Moses killed an Egyptian man for beating an Israelite and went into hiding for decades; and then how God decided it was time for Miriam's little brother to spring into action as an eighty-year-old man who negotiates with Pharaoh, sees God send plagues to Egypt to overthrow their gods, and then ends up with the Israelites running for their lives, chased by an army of death.

Now we see them come to the water.

Standing in more reeds

like Miriam stood in the reeds before.

It's Pharaoh coming after Moses again.

What will Miriam do now?

Moses tells the people, 

"Don't be afraid.

Just stand still and watch 

the LORD rescue you today" 

(Exodus 14:13, NLT), 

mirroring the language used 

to describe what Miriam 

was doing so many years earlier, 

standing and watching to see

what would happen to 

her baby brother.

Shortly thereafter, on the other side of the Red (reed) Sea, the Israelites stand after watching Pharaoh and his unstoppable army swallowed up by the water. Everybody starts singing and dancing and thanking God.

Then Miriam remembers.

She remembers that baby,

those reeds,

that river.

All the fear.

The hopelessness.

Maybe wondering if the God

of the Israelites cared at all or

really was powerful enough to defeat

the seemingly more successful

gods of Egypt.

In the end,

it wasn't her baby brother

who drowned among the reeds.

It was evil itself.

So she starts her own song.

She sings about the goodness of God.

She couldn't have scripted this.

And now she can't resist singing.

If I could sit down with Miriam, I'd ask her to remind me: How does all this end? I've seen some beautiful things ... But there's an ache to life — the trauma, fear, and heartbreak. So much pain in the world feels overwhelming if I stop to think about it.

What was all this about?

How does this end?

And maybe Miriam would say,

"Don't be afraid.

Just stand still and watch 

the Lord rescue you today."

And maybe we'd believe her.

Maybe we'd start believing

we really are safe, after all.

We'd wonder why 

we didn't see it all along,

when Jesus told us we'd have troubles

but to be of good cheer.

Miriam had to sing her own song.

I wonder what your song will be.

+ adapted excerpts from 

Chapter 26:

"The Song You Will Sing,"

pgs. 200-203

by Brant Hansen

Miriam's story above summarized by one author reminds me of these words written by another author:

Joy is a mystery 

because it can happen

anywhere, anytime, 

even under the most

unpromising circumstances, 

even in the midst of suffering, 

with tears in its eyes.

+ Frederick Buechner, 

Secrets in the Dark

And like Yeshua's Miriam (the Hebrew name for "Mary" is Miriam) and her Magnificat song of protest for good, Moses' Miriam sang a song in a time when she could have felt deserted, but instead shouted her praise built on previous songs to God, offering a fresh overflow of crescendo in her present moment. 

Miriam looked for God to come. 

And when she saw Him, she sang.

So can we.

Choose your Advent song and sing.

Advent

(God's coming to us) 

leaves in its wake a trail of songs. 

From Mary’s magnificat 

to the herald of angelic hosts, 

from the shepherds 

to Simeon’s praise, 

songs poured forth 

from those who witnessed ... 

 Joy made music. 

+ FDC: Longing for Advent

Bonus Advent Posts:

+ God's Disruption of Disorder 

+ The Story Is Still Being Written

+ Joy as Resistance

+ Protest for All That's Good

+ All the Light We Cannot See

 With presence and peace in Christ,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Experiencing Real Joy | Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Let's Dance.

Hallelujah Night at Hanover Theatre on Friday, October 31, 2025

Pain is real.
Suffering is real.
But in Jesus' worldview,
despair is not the deepest reality ...

It's joy that underpins everything.
It's the deepest note that rings
through our lives, even in tragedy.

+ Brant Hansen,
Life Is Hard.
God Is Good.
Let's Dance.
Experiencing Real Joy
in a World Gone Mad

Is it a time to dance?

It might not feel like it right now. But during the dark hours of this past Friday, October 31 on All Hallows' Eve, I saw 2,300 people in the Hanover Theatre in the city of Worcester, across tradition, across culture, across ethnicity, dance to these words together:

" ... Every time I call Your name

Chains break, dry bones wake.

Every time I call Your name

The gates of Hell shake ... "

+ "I Know a Name"

I say I saw 2,300 people, 

but I was also participating with them. 

I was dancing. 

I was singing.

I was daring to hope that

the gates of Hell could shake,

could quake in a city that often feeds on

cynicism, skepticism, and criticism.

I say this because I'm a citizen

of Worcester and I too often

feed on all these things.

But I want more.

I want joy.

And while hope is often described as "a dangerous thing," somewhere deep inside us, we still dare to believe that "hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

I'm trying to hope for a lot of things right now, for me, for my family, for Emmaus City Church, for my neighbors, for Worcester (especially when I see what God is doing in Atlanta among 40,000+ people with ACCESS and 2819, or in Jesus' Church in China where humble and holy people say, “No suffering, no glory—that’s the most important spiritual DNA of the Chinese house church movement ... we are willing to pay the price to bear the cost of discipleship.”). Yet, as I seek to be a hope dealer in the beloved city I get to call home, sometimes I find that my joy is lacking, my energy zapped, my heart heavy. And that's why I felt like God was inviting me to listen to words from a fellow misfit again this week.

One of my favorite books I have read during the past decade is Blessed Are the Misfits: Great News for Believers Who Are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They're Missing Something by Brant Hansen. I love the title of that book (proving that sometimes lengthy can actually be a good thing). And I love the words written inside this book even more, written by someone who describes himself like this:

I'm not adept socially.

I'm on the autism spectrum.

I'm from a broken family ...

By nature, I'm a bitter pessimist.

A glass-half-empty guy.

A fatalist.

A very anxious person ...

I've always felt like a misfit.

And yet, Brant shares that:

Even as someone prone to 

great skepticism,

I am gaining faith

when so many other people

in our culture seem to be losing it.

These words are featured in Brant's most recent book with another good lengthy title, Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Let's Dance.: Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad. Publisher's Weekly describes it as "Quirky and inviting essays on what it means to live joyfully in a world full of 'anger and anxiety'... This optimism booster has a light touch and a lasting impact."

The rest of this post below features one of Brant's quirky and inviting essays that has stuck with me. In fact, these stories of girls and boys being healed to run and dance came to mind again when I was worshiping with others during this past hallowed night and saw a little bit of heaven break into Worcester. 

I dare to hope that we will get to see a little more of heaven in our city in the days to come. And when we do, I hope to respond with joy and a little more dancing.

Joyful Sisterhood by Motiontography

A CURE for Joy & Dancing

There are millions of kids around the world who have disabilities that could be fixed with surgery ... but they don't get fixed. So a married couple who are Jesus followers, one a nurse and the other an orthopedic surgeon, thought, Well ... why don't we fix them? Jesus told us to proclaim the Kingdom and heal the sick. Shouldn't that be what we're known for? CURE grew into a network of permanent surgical hospitals serving the poorest of the poor, children who would never get access to surgeries otherwise ... 

A few weeks ago, the sun was setting in Lusaka, Zambia, and I stood with some friends near a playground. There were two little girls giggling and hopping along, their moms watching nearby. We started talking to the moms and eventually playing with the little girls. They were new friends. Both were five years old, and both had severely deformed legs, with their feet turned inward and slightly upside down, from untreated clubfoot.

There's a thing I love to do when visiting CURE hospitals: I love to twirl the kids. They line up for it. I grab their wrists, and we spin and spin until I can't stand up anymore. It's a gigglfest! (Excuse me — Microsoft Word is now giving me the red squiggly line telling me gigglefest isn't a word. How am I supposed to write a serious theological work about global health care and CURE without gigglefest? I'm using it anyway.) Anyway, back to this gigglefest ... Before the sun went down it was Elizabethe who wanted to be twirled over and over. What a sweetheart. 

She struggled to walk

but played so hard.

Twirl a giggling kid a long time, and you learn: (1) it's never enough for them and you'll have to tap out from dizziness, and (2) you'll probably remember the kid. I remember Elizabeth.

CURE gives access to surgeries these kids might never have otherwise. Parents sometimes give up hope that their kids can ever be healed, only to find out about a CURE hospital, sometimes hundreds of miles away, that will do the surgery and charge exactly $0.00. So these hospitals are busy and special places.

I consider them

embassies of

the Kingdom heaven.

When I visit one of these hospitals, I usually sit in to observe a surgery or two. In Zambia, they do ten to fifteen surgeries each day. Later in my weeklong stay, I came in midafternoon and observed Dr. Moyo preparing as the techs readied the now sleeping little patient. I could see only two feet sticking out from beneath the sheet. I asked him the child's name and for a little background. "It's a girl. This is the first of two surgeries for this patient. Her name is ... " He checked. "Elizabeth" ... When Dr. Moyo and the nurses started praying over her, I got emotional. Her life was about to change drastically. 

Dr. Moyo paused before the surgery 

and told me what Elizabeth's life 

would have been like 

if she hadn't been taken to CURE. 

"She would always be pushed aside. 

Her disability would 

forever be her identity. 

She would always be 

considered a curse," he said. 

"She would be everybody's victim."

Everybody's victim?

This little girl?

Not happening.

Not now.

This kid is going to 

be able to run and

play and

dance.

Joyful Sisterhood by Motiontography

I once met a little girl in Kenya named Ellen who got similar treatment. Her mom couldn't stop smiling, because it wasn't long before Ellen was a complete blur on the soccer field, even at age six. I saw her in action, running circles around boys several years older than her. Even they were laughing at the pure speed of the kid. 

No one runs with more 

unbridled, glorious vivacity 

than a little kid 

who's been only sitting and 

watching her whole life.

So much of what we see in the news is about destroying the young: abuse and murders and wars and mass shootings. When horrible things happen, some folks respond with a question for those of us who somehow still believe in a good, all-powerful God: "Where's your God now?" It's a fair question. But I have a fair answer because God is still at work in the world. Where's my God now? Go with me to one of these hospitals. I'll show you.

"This is a place where

God walks the earth,"

one lady said.

She was smiling. It was at the CURE hospital in Ethiopia, and she was saying it because her life was suddenly changing and a burden was lifted, literally, off her back. She was the mom to a boy named Andualem, and while her husband had abandoned her after seeing little Andualem's crooked legs, she wasn't going to give him up. When it came time for him to start his schooling and he couldn't walk with her, she carried him. She put him on her back and walked more than a mile along a dusty road to take him to school.

Every day, there and back, she carried him. She did it for first grade, and then for second grade. Even as he grew bigger and bigger she carried him. He held her around her shoulders and neck. Fourth grade. Fifth grade. Sixth grade. He grew and grew, and she kept carrying him. Moms are forces of nature.

One day, a truck driver who'd seen her on multiple occasions stopped along the road to talk with her. He mentioned a place where he thought she might be able to find healing for her son. He'd heard of CURE in Addis Ababa. When she got to the hospital, Andualem's mom showed the staff the scars on her back from carrying her son for so long. And she cried. 

She found people who cared, and healing for her son. A dream come true. And that's when she said what she said, about it being a place where God walks the earth, and I can tell you she's right about that. It's not that the people working in the hospital aren't highly flawed. Of course they are. But that's just it:

When humans,

such as we all are,

want God's Kingdom on earth

as it is in heaven —

when we really catch a vision for it

 — the reaction from desperate people

is "Surely, God is here!"

They know it.

God can use any of us.

God has an MO, a style,

which He uses all the time:

He uses the humble.

He uses the little things,

the seemingly unimpressive,

overlooked things

to do the marvelous.

He enjoys it.

+ pgs. 15, 44-47, 97

adapted excerpts from

"A Place Where God Walks the Earth" in

Life Is Hard. God Is Good.

Let's Dance.

Joy is not 

a passing sensation of pleasure,

but a pervasive sense 

of well-being.

+ Dallas Willard

Joy is an act of resistance
against all the forces of despair:
violence, war, debt, death ...
all of the things that can cause us
to think life in this world is not worth living.

+ Willie James Jennings

Bonus Posts on Joy:

+ A Laugh Freed Forever

+ In Our Darkest Hours

Next Post:

Endure. Resist. Remain.

Jesus Is Worthy of It All.

With anticipation and joy,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

A Laugh Freed Forever | Jesus, Filled with Joy, Fills Us with Joy

Jesus was filled with the joy
of the Holy Spirit, and He said, 

“O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 

thank You for hiding these things 

from those who think themselves 

wise and clever, and for 

revealing them to the childlike."

+ Luke 10:21

Jesus' life and ministry

are marked by joy,
and His resurrection,
as Patrick Kavanagh describes it,
is a kind of 'laugh freed
for ever and ever.'
Jesus is the supremely joyful one.
+ David Taylor,
Open and Unafraid

When the LORD brought back
the captives to Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.

Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”

The LORD has done great things for us, and
we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes again, LORD,
like streams of living water in the Negev desert.

Those who sow with tears will
reap with songs of joy.

Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow, will
return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves of blessing with them.

+ Psalm 126

Psalm 126 has been the psalm I've memorized, recited, prayed, and carried with me the most the past few years. And I think God has given it as a gift to carry into the next decade of ministry with Emmaus City Church.

I want to continue to grow into someone who dreams with the help of the Spirit of God (see also Acts 2:4, 17-18), whose mouth is filled with laughter, whose tongue is quick to sing songs of joy even as I'm honest and true with my tears, ready to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. I want to go out weeping carrying seed to sow that will result in blessing others and this world with joy. Five additional verses throughout the Scriptures have helped my focus on this even more:

This day is holy to our Lord.
Do not grieve, for
the joy of the Lord is your strength.
+ Nehemiah 8:10

Do not be afraid.
I bring you good news that will

cause great joy
for all the people.
+ Luke 2:10

I have told you this so that
My joy may be in you
and that
your joy may be complete.
+ John 15:11

The LORD is my strength and shield.

I trust Him with all my heart.

He helps me, and

my heart is filled with joy.

I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.

+ Psalm 28:7

Jesus was filled with the joy
of the Holy Spirit, and He said, 

“O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 

thank You for hiding these things 

from those who think themselves 

wise and clever, and for 

revealing them to the childlike."

+ Luke 10:21

Experiencing Joy When Laughter Is Scarce

In a similar part of the Story of God in the Bible that Psalm 126 alludes to, when Israel was being a swallowed by the judgment of a time of captivity and sadness, these words were shared by a prophet to remember how the Lord of heaven and earth comes to offer us delicious joy ... 

The Lord of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat.  

“Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink—even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk— it’s all free! Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to Me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food. Come to Me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David. 

Go out through the gates! Prepare the highway for My people to return! Smooth out the road; pull out the boulders; raise a flag for all the nations to see. The Lord has sent this message to every land: “Tell the people of Israel, ‘Look, your Savior is coming. See, He brings His reward with Him as He comes.’” They will be called “The Holy People” and “The People Redeemed by the Lord.” And Jerusalem will be known as “The Desirable Place” and “The City No Longer Forsaken.”  

+ Isaiah 25:6, 55:1-3, 62:10-12

For Israel to receive such powerful and prophetic words during a time of great darkness, joy would seemingly need to be not only a gift they tasted and received, but a choice they made against the hollowness inside them and the desert exile around them. This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes about joy:

Joy is an act of resistance
against all the forces of despair:
violence, war, debt, death ...
all of the things that can cause us
to think life in this world is not worth living.

Cultivating joy
is an act of resistance
to any person, event, or system
that would have us believe
that death has the final word on our lives.

+ Willie James Jennings,
There is Great Joy in Our Darkest Hours

So how do we make this choice of joy in the face of the frightening and unknown? Can we sit with God today in our everyday stuff of life and welcome His presence in such a way that we can cry out to Him while we also laugh with Him that sorrow and evil will not have the final word? 

Laughing Wine Jesus (Isaiah 25:6, 55:1-3, 62:8-12) by Rochelle Walden, 2018 A.D., similar to Jesus Christ, Liberator (often referred to as Laughing Jesus) by Willis Wheatley, 1973 A.D.

Jesus Laughs; He Doesn't Hold Back His Joy

What attracts me to the Jesus Christ, Liberator artwork by Willis Wheatley (similar to the painting, Laughing Wine Jesus, above by Rochelle Walden) is the image of Jesus' head thrown back, with his eyes closed and his mouth open in unrestrained laughter.

Jesus laughing with joy. 

Too often pictures portray Jesus as expressionless, staring off strangely into some distant horizon ... looking apathetic about being on earth as he stands rigidly among a crowd of people. But this picture is different. This picture is human. Sometimes I look at the picture and imagine what would have made Jesus throw his head back and laugh so hard. Maybe it was the children who ran to Him (Matthew 18:1-5; Luke 18:16-17) ... Maybe it was sitting with His friends around a table, and the conversation went as conversations go, and everyone was laughing (Matthew 9:9-13, 11:19; Luke 12:37, 14:23, 24:41). ... Maybe He laughed like this after His resurrection when He appeared in Jerusalem and "they still did not believe it (was Him) because of joy and amazement" (Luke 24:41).

Jesus' face is full of emotion in this image. He isn't stoic; He is filled with a joy that cannot be contained (Luke 10:21; Psalm 126:2; Hebrews 12:2). The closed eyes and wide smile suggest a comfort and freedom with expressing his emotions. In every one of the possible reasons for the laughter, I can relate — and this blows my mind — to God through the very human Jesus. This is the beauty and profundity of the incarnation (John 1:1, 4-5, 14). ... The holy otherness of the ineffable God became tangible and describable in the humanity of Jesus (John 1:14; Hebrews 1:1-3).

The Recovered Image of Joyful Humanity

Humanity needed a human, fully alive, to show us God's intended design (1 Corinthians 15:48-49). Through His relationship with God, interactions with others, and action in the world, Jesus shows what a human looks like when they are fully restored, sanctified, and freed from the brokenness brought about by sin (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). 

Jesus, as the model for both men and women, calls all toward one singular end, namely, Christlikeness (Romans 8:29). Men and women are to embody meekness, gentleness, self-control, and humility (Galatians 5:22-23), as well as strength, courage, resolve, and boldness, as they grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus (2 Peter 3:18). Jesus is more complex and more human than we can imagine, which is why both men and women can grow into His likeness (Romans 8:29). God incarnated Himself in Jesus to restore humanity — both men and women (Genesis 1:27; 2 Corinthians 3:18). 

Jesus, then, becomes our focus. We follow Jesus to become like Jesus (John 13:14-17, 34-35). His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30). He defines reality, how we should live, and what we should do. ... So if we want to know what it means to be a son or daughter of God, we look to Jesus (Romans 8:29). ... If we want to be free with joy and laughter, we look to Jesus (Luke 10:21).

I love how Andy Crouch describes learning and receiving joyful laughter from Jesus when He arrives in the story of God:

"(Jesus') arrival in the story sets us free to flourish. And the mark of His arrival is not the hero's grim shout of triumph or the victim's grim cry of despair, but the distinctive sound of those surprised by joy: laughter (see Psalm 126:1-2 above). 

If you want one last picture of authority and vulnerability together, laughter will do the trick. To laugh, to really laugh out loud, is to be vulnerable, taken beyond ourselves, overcome by surprise and gratitude. And to really laugh may be the last, best kind of authority – the capacity to see the meaning of the whole story and discover that our final act, our only enduring responsibility in that story, is simply celebration, delight and worship. After we have borne our hidden vulnerability, even after we have descended to the dead, after we have been rescued from our suffering, our withdrawing, our exploiting – we will be raised up, restored to our rightful place. And we will laugh." 

Visual of Revelation 3:20 and Jesus Laughing from The Chosen

Rejoice in the One Who Gives Us Freedom 

What if we gave up our independence in exchange for dependence on Christ? What if we saw our dependence on Christ as a reason to be interdependent with each other? What if we found a reason to be sacrificially concerned with the cause of others with hope and joy in the Spirit (Philippians 2:1-5)? Maybe we would find the freedom to throw our heads back in laughter ... We might look like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Let's step into 2024, rejoicing and laughing together. Why? Because Yeshua is the King whose love is big enough to give freely.  And He's the King who was free enough to laugh when He came and will make our joy complete when He returns.

I have told you this so that
My joy may be in you
and that
your joy may be complete.

+ Jesus
(John 15:11)

I choose His joy.

The Lord is my strength and shield.

I trust Him with all my heart.

He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy.

I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.

+ Psalm 28:7

+ Excerpts adapted from Andy Crouch's Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk & Flourishing and Nate Pyle's Man Enough: How Jesus Redefines Manhood.

Bonus post:

CGM: Is Joy Possible

"... I wonder if joy has the potential
to be the most countercultural aspect
of God’s people.

Our age is characterized by anger,
resentment, fear, blame, and cynicism.
So joy seems strange, or even inappropriate —
at the very least, not fit
for the seriousness of our predicament.

But joy is stealthy, carrying a secret power.
After all, it exists at the center
of God’s trinitarian relationship.
It’s why C.S. Lewis called joy
“the serious business of heaven.”
Joy is potent, in its ability to speak
to our deepest longings and
as fuel for our greatest desires.
Because joy is rooted in God,
it is a persistent longing of all people. ... "

May God's Kingdom come, His will be done.

Que le Royaume de Dieu vienne,

que sa volonté soit faite.

愿神的国降临，愿神的旨意成就。

Nguyện xin Nước Chúa đến, ý Ngài được nên.

Jesús nuestra Rey, venga Tu reino!

🙏💗🍞🍷👑🌅🌇

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

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