Joy of Man’s Desiring – Sunday, September 19, 1982
“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” a beautiful work by Bach, is one of the most beloved in the literature of great music. It is so partly for its moving melody, and also because it captures and encompasses a thought and a hope that every human heart warm to the pursuit of joy.
At first glance one might wonder how the life of Jesus could serve as a model in the search for joy.
Jesus was born in the humblest of circumstances, resident of a tiny town in the backwaters of a captive nation. He was despised and rejected as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”1 His attempts to preach love and caring to His people were cut short in the cruelest manner than men could devise.
So where was the joy in Jesus’ life? By traditional measurements He had difficulty finding success in His work. He did not convert vast multitudes. But then He did not measure His success in quantities. He was concerned with the quality of light and truth He might bring to even a single soul.
And did He enjoy the things of this world? No. He gained no worldly wealth. But He loved the beautiful gifts of the earth. “Consider the lilies of the field,” He said. “They toil not neither do they spin but I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”2
He did not feel the joy of friendship. Though people flocked to hear Him at times, they were equally willing to abandon him. In His darkest hour He was completely alone. Yet He enjoyed a friendship that would never fail, a friendship with His Father in Heaven. And this celestially centered joy sustained Him through His trials.
And what of the joy of freedom? Bound, beaten, imprisoned and finally crucified, He would appear to be a man of miseries, another of the world’s sad captives at the mercy of the merciless. But in reality, He was the most free of all because He had the power to impose His will on others, yet He chose not to.
And thus, on closer inspection it would appear that Jesus was a man of joy, the deepest, most permanent kind of joy. And in our own lives as we fluctuate from frustration to fulfillment, pleasure to pain, we would do well to develop the deeper joys that He knew—joys like the calm waters of the ocean depths that pass unperturbed beneath the surface storms that rage above them.
1 Old Testament, Isaiah 53:3
2 New Testament, Matthew 6:28
________________________________________
September 19, 1982
Broadcast Number 2,770