Rejoicing

Her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had displayed His great mercy toward her; and they were rejoicing with her. (Luke 1:58)
Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had been very kind to her, and they shared her joy. (GW)
And her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had magnified his generosity toward her; and they rejoiced with her. (CGV)
And her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had had great compassion on her; and they rejoiced with her. (WNT)
Her neighbors and relatives got to hear how the Lord had been so mercifully kind to her, and they celebrated with her. (WIKI)


There are clues that I notice in this text that are drawing me to want to experience more of this kind of thing in my own life. No, I don't mean I want to have a baby and get lots of attention. What is coming to my attention here is something that is increasingly foreign to our Western way of living and relating to each other – a kind of celebrating in the lives of those around us that is counter to the independent mentality of our culture that is squeezing the life out of our souls.


I am a product to a large extent of this culture. All my life I have struggled to relate to others easily. Even as a teenager, the time when many people integrate widely into a network of friends and find it easy to bond with others, I felt mostly alone, different, outside, independent. Much of that had to do with my austere religious mentality that tended to keep me at a distance from others. Yet even that had to do with the assumptions I had about what it means to be a Christian. The idea of living collectively, sharing emotions and experiences readily with others has always felt strange to me. On top of that the concept of celebrating was generally viewed with suspicion to start with.


But beyond my own idiosyncrasies, I have observed that Western culture in general fosters and encourages a fierce spirit of competition and independence that I believe disempowers us from experiencing life together in ways that are more natural in many Eastern cultures. I am sure those cultures have their drawbacks as well, but as I study the Kingdom principles that I am discovering in Scriptures, I can't help but see deficiencies in our typical approach to life in contrast to the kind of intimate fellowship that marked the lives of so many who closely followed God.


I am sure that this text is largely reflective of the culture of that time and society. Neither is this necessarily completely absent in our own society. Many people love to celebrate with others and some are willing to be involved in sympathizing with problems of others. But there is still a widespread and increasing tendency today to pull away more and more from sharing our hearts with others in a vulnerable way, to share our lives, our homes and to open ourselves up to be transparent and allow others in to our personal lives.


Yet I am fully convinced that all those who become serious about following Jesus and allowing Him access to their hearts will find themselves compelled to be more involved in each others experience. It seems to be an inevitable symptom of being an genuine follower of Christ. What is described about the early group of believers after Pentecost was no accident. The intense bonding and unity and joy that marked the lives of those early disciples will again be seen in the lives of all who today become filled with that same Spirit that compelled them to passionately share the good news about God with a hurting, deceived, isolated world.


Another thing that caught my attention in this passage was the reference to God's character and attitude towards us. I liked the way that various translations rendered this. Mercy, kindness, generosity, compassion. These are attributes of God that I have been learning to meditate and focus on over recent years with amazing results. I find that to compel myself to intentionally focus on the real truth about God's character, especially when my own emotions and fears and feelings are hiding His goodness from me, I can begin to dissipate the suffocating effects of such negative feelings and can literally feel the life of God rejuvenating my own spirit in short order. By beholding I really am changed.


Putting these two observations together it is starting to become obvious that it is necessary to not only focus on the truth about God's goodness individually but to allow ourselves to collectively celebrate His goodness and generosity in the lives of others around us. But that is the part that I find a bit strange given my life-long tendency toward isolation and solitude. I do believe there are advantages to not allowing group-think to control my decisions and beliefs. But at the same time there can also be a danger in living so isolated that I become incapable of knowing the kind of joy that is seen being experienced during this celebration that swirled around Elizabeth.


I found the variety of translations of this verse helpful to me even in this regard. They celebrated with her; they rejoiced with her; they shared her joy. Given the improved definition of joy that I have learned in recent years, that joy is what we experience when someone is keen to simply be with us in our emotions and experience, I have become more aware of my own deep need for far more joy in my own life and the enhanced strength that it would bring me.


But to experience joy one has to be willing to make themselves more open to allowing others to share in their life. It is not enough for someone else to want to be with you and enter into what is going on in your life, as important or rare as that may be. It takes two or more to share joy which is the part that I seem so far to be rather handicapped in being able to practice. When I observe people around me or in stories like this who have far greater capacity and willingness to readily share joy with each other, it highlights my own deficiency in this area. Thankfully God is working to remediate me.


In this text it says that it was her neighbors and relatives who were sharing in her joy. I find that a bit convicting in the light of the fact that I know almost nothing about any of my neighbors and most of my relatives are not only distant physically but we have never known how to be emotionally close like what I see in this verse. So many of us, especially in our current culture, have been taught to emphasize the training of our intellect, to learn as much as possible and memorize all the answers to any potential questions that might come along. We have learned all sorts of skills and have supplemented our knowledge base repeatedly for many years. Yet when it comes to easily joining in genuinely with the emotions of those around us we often find ourselves feeling clumsy and awkward and resistant. And that seems especially true in my own life.


Of course I could attempt to remedy this by trying to learn skills to try to practice activities that make it appear I know how to experience joy with others. I could study carefully all the techniques of what it looks like to join into a good party. I could try to mimic the activities of others who appear to be having a rollicking good time and I suspect that millions of people are doing exactly that every day. However, it also is evident that such attempts usually end in frustration, feelings of despair and sometimes even in disaster. I believe our world is scarred by the many attempts to fill the yawning chasm of emptiness that most of us feel inside that can only be filled by experiencing true joy. But instead we are only medicated by any number of desperate attempts to mask our real need with shots of pleasure. There is a vast difference between getting temporary pleasure and finding real satisfaction at a much deeper level.


I have noticed that Jesus talked about joy in rather interesting ways that I find quite compelling. He spoke of entering into the joy of the Lord. He talked about fulness of joy and other such references that tells me He knows we are missing something vitally important to us. For much of my life even the word 'joy' seemed like little more than a taunt to me. Biblical instructions to rejoice were just religious clichés that had no meaning for me personally. Yet all the time my heart longed for this experience of true joy and connectedness to other hearts and it still haunts me. I have certainly learned a great deal of wonderful information about joy and have filled my mind with all sorts of truths about God that make me increasingly hungry to know Him much better. But I am still far behind when it comes to actually living in joy and benefiting from the enormous power that I am seeing will only come from experiencing genuine joy as we were intended to have.


Even the happy description of this celebration in the life of Zacharias and Elizabeth when their son was born falls far short of God's desire for each one of us. I suspect that as intense as that celebration must have been and as unusual the circumstances were that precipitated that party, what those people experienced was just a teaser compared to what God intends for all of us to experience in fellowship with Him and the body He is knitting together. I believe that sin has damaged all of us and causes us to keep our distance from each other to a greater or lesser degree. But keeping others at a distance is not something Jesus practiced when He came to show us the real truth about God. And all those who are serious about following in His example will sooner or later must deal with this same issue in the way they relate to others, especially those who are being integrated deeply into His body.


It is one thing to talk about joy, to dissect and analyze and become intellectual experts on it or even to attempt to imitate those who appear to know how to live it readily with others. But somehow God has to get so integrated into our lives that our own emotions can be released to again function as originally designed and we start to be freed from all the fears, inhibitions and lies that have for so long locked us in reclusive isolation in our own homes or chasing after counterfeit ways of finding happiness.


I look with great anticipation to the day when I can more fully experience what I am learning that my heart was designed to experience. I want to be released to express the unique design that God created in me and to share and celebrate the uniqueness of others. The more I learn and discover about this kind of joy the more I want to know it for myself.


A thought thta keeps coming to my attention is that I have yet so much to learn from little children. They seem to be about the only experts in this world when it comes to knowing how to be genuinely joyful – joy-filled without inhibitions, at least before they are carefully taught how to be afraid or be prejudiced or suspicious. No wonder Jesus told us that until we are willing to become like a little child that it is impossible to enter into His kingdom.


Jesus promised that He would never leave us or forsake us, that He would be with us always. That sounds like a promise of potential joy to me. Yet the thought just crossed my mind that because of some of the things I was taught growing up tend to contradict that, I may well have been caused to increasingly doubt His positive presence in my life. For instance, I was told as a young person that if I were to enter a theater that my guardian angel would remain outside until I emerged again. Other such warnings that God would leave me subconsciously led me to assume that God only wanted to be with those who were obedient, that I needed to be good enough for His approval. Yet over the years I increasingly never felt good enough for God and thus subconsciously assumed that He does not want to be with me until I get my act together better.


In the increasing light of the real truth about how God relates to sinners, I am now learning that many of my early assumptions were not only false but were designed by Satan to frighten or discourage me from being drawn toward God. We live in a world immersed in myriads of lies about God, most of which go undetected and unchallenged. But God is at work increasingly to expose these lies with the real truth about His own trustworthiness, His constant love and presence. Joy is never far away but is waiting for anyone willing to simply believe Him. Sounds like something Jesus might have said.