Sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Lance Moore on Sunday, February 17, 2008
We continue in our Lenten Sermon Series from the Gospel and Letters of John. For today’s Lesson, we read more from the
15th Chapter of John, with verses 9-11: Jesus said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
And we continue in the Gospel of John, moving to Chapter 16, verses 20-24: “I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no-one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”
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“Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat.…”
So begins one of the great classics of English Literature, the book Paradise Lost, by John Milton. The epic poem pictures Satan Lucifer coming to Earth to visit Paradise in order to observe those new creatures, Adam and Eve. Satan stands at the edge of the Garden and views the incredible beauty of Paradise, and is overcome with emotion. Before I tell you which emotion he felt, sample a bit of Milton’s poetic description of that beautiful garden [spelling changed to modern English]:
Southward through Eden went a River large, Nor changed [its] course, but through the shaggie hill Passed underneath ingulfed, for God had thrown That Mountain as his Garden mould high raised Upon the rapid current, which through veins Of porous Earth with kindly thirst up drawn, Rose a fresh Fountain, and with many a rill Watered the Garden; thence united fell Down the steep glade, and met the neather Flood, Which from his darksome passage now appears, And now divided into four main Streams, Runs diverse, wandering many a famous Realm And Country whereof here needs no account, But rather to tell how, if Art could tell, How from that Sapphire Fount the crisped Brooks, Rolling on Orient Pearl and sands of Gold, With mazie error under pendant shades Ran Nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Flowers worthy of Paradise.…”
Milton there confesses that Art and Poetry cannot express the grandeur of Paradise. So, in the face of that inexpressable beauty, Satan is overwhelmed... NOT with joy or awe, but with sadness, a deep grief and despair. Imagine that: despair in the midst of Paradise!
You see, Satan was not grieved because he was barred from Paradise. He was disturbed because he had broken into Paradise, seen its beauty, but still had a dark emptiness in his own soul. He literally carried Hell around in his belly.
We, too, may find in the best of situations an inexplicable sadness, a feeling that something is not right. Sometimes it is called the “blues,” sometimes depression or anxiety, that deep feeling of uneasiness and worry which eats away at your insides even on a flawlessly beautiful spring day. It may not be a spiritual problem—it might be caused by psychological or physiological disorder. Someone wrote a book called, “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.” Borrowing from that, I’d say, “Even Christians Get the Blues.” Because even if “all is well with my soul,” I can still fall victim to depression of the body and mind.
Even Christians can feel a spiritual sadness or emptiness, a feeling of purposelessness, hopelessness, and an emptiness that shakes a person’s very reason for existence. My friends, despair can dwell even in the midst of Paradise, even when everything outwardly is going right. There is no panacea, no easy universal cure, for that feeling. But I do believe there is a deeper joy available to Christians, and that the more we are filled by the presence and love of Christ, the closer we come to receiving the promise of joy Jesus made us.
Did you hear that promise in our opening Scripture? “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Complete, full joy. And how do we find this inner joy? Jesus told us: “Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”
Joy is different than happiness. Trivial happiness can be found with or without commitment to Christ: it is an external, physical thing. Give me a million dollars and I'll be happy. But contentment is a completely different thing. Contentment is the condition of your soul. It is the secret desire of everyone in this room, young or old. If we’re discontent, even Paradise will be worthless to us.
Did you see a few weeks ago where Heath Ledger died of a drug overdose? He was a promising young actor, had won awards and rave reviews. Rich, famous, good-looking, living in Paradise. But there must have been some deep despair inside. We see the same scenario played out with celebrities all the time. All the mansions, cars, fancy clothes and fame, and yet how many seem miserable? I’m surprised that Britney and Lindsey and Paris are all still alive... they certainly don’t seem to be satisfied with life unless they are high on some kind of drug or drink. The most amazing celebrity of my generation is Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. I’ve seen dead people—corpses—who looked healthier than Keith Richards. Again, he had every pleasure: fame, fortune, drugs, women; he traveled in limousines and private jets; made more money than all of us put together. But he poignantly admitted in one of his songs, “I can't get no satisfaction.” Remember the desperate words that he and Mick Jagger sang: “I tried, and I tried, and I tried, but I can’t get no satisfaction.” His despair is palpable.
If I could be a movie-producer and make a movie out of the poem, Paradise Lost, I would certainly cast Mick Jagger or Keith Richards as the character of Satan, as he stands on the edge of Paradise, pained with despair!
Today I am luckier than Mick Jagger, because I have found satisfaction. I am content and full in the joy of Jesus Christ. Christ is the only thing which can truly satisfy us, young or old. As we mentioned in the first sermon in this series, Jesus stated in John 4:13, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.” Christ is the only answer to despair in Paradise.
Until you surrender every part of your life to Jesus, He cannot deliver you from despair. But one sin keeps Him out: the sin of pride. Arrogance and self-reliance, the idea that we can take care of ourselves better than God can. It is the original sin in Paradise, the sin Adam committed when he ate the apple. Pride is the natural inclination of humans to go our own way, to care for ego and selfish desires. Pride is the idea that we can keep God in certain parts of our lives, like at church on Sunday, but that we don't really need God at school or at work or when we're having fun.
The great English writer and theologian, G.K. Chesterton, wrote, “Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. Seriousness is not a virtue....” Yes, it was pride that dragged Satan down from heaven, down from joy to despair. And pride is what drives the sin of Phariseeism, that joyless, judgmental seriousness that masquerades as true religion.
If in somber pride we reject God’s call to grace and joy, then we fall into despair... it is a law of the universe. If we disregard the laws of physics, and jump off a building, we are then subject to the natural law of gravity. If we refuse God’s moral, spiritual law, then we shall be subject to the other kind of “gravity”— gravitas in the Latin, gravity in the sense of being overly-serious, feeling “the gravity of the situation,“ the sadly somber state which has the same root word as “grave.” G.K. Chesterton also wrote, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly....[but] Satan fell by force of gravity.” We have a society of extremes: some who are too Pharisaical to enjoy life, and others who are too obsessed with pleasure-seeking they cannot find true contentment. Saint Paul condemned the legalist and the libertine with equal vigor. Our society is thirsting for satisfaction, but seeks to quench that thirst by extreme, as this joke illustrates:
Three Christian ladies went out to a popular restaurant. They were told to wait in the lounge until their number was called. A cocktail waitress came by and said, “Welcome to Happy Hour, what would you like to drink?” The three prim and proper ladies graciously declined anything from the bar. “Just waiting for a table,” they said. Fifteen minutes later, the waitress came by again, and said, “What would you like to drink for Happy Hour?” Again, the three ladies declined. Five minutes later the waitress tried yet again to sell them drinks, saying “You do know that all liquor is on sale during Happy Hour.” Exasperated, one of the ladies replied: “Ma’m, we’re tee-totalling Baptists, and this is as happy as we're going to get!”
If you are content only during happy hour, you have not found the right drink! In John 4:14, Jesus told the woman at the well that the water He gives would become in her a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Instead of “happy hour,” he offered her “contented eternity.” So, if you are not full of the Joy of Christ, it is because you have not allowed Christ to fill you. You have cut yourself off from the source of true joy and contentment.
On the other hand, while we cannot find lasting satisfaction in worldly things, that does not mean that we are forbidden to find enjoyment in this world. After all, the first chapter of the Bible tells us that God created Paradise, a place of pure joy. The first word we hear about Jesus is the angel announcing his birth, “I bring you news of great joy.” (Luke 2:10).
The very essence of Christian life is joy. The prudish ladies in the bar who said, “We are as happy as we are going to get,” might have been surprised to read the words of John Calvin, who wrote, “We are nowhere forbidden to laugh, or to be satisfied with food...or to be delighted with music, or to drink wine.” [John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion] Wow. Calvin founded Presbyterianism, and he is one of the theological fathers of the Baptist movement. And yet, people still think that being a conservative Christian means you have to be somber and prudish.
Almost every denomination has, in their history, a common message: the Christian faith is one of joy, not dreariness. Pope John Paul the II wrote: “Christ came to bring joy...joy is the keynote of the Christian message....” The Anglican theologian, C.S. Lewis wrote, “Fully to enjoy is to glorify [God]...God is inviting us to enjoy Him.” The father of the Lutheran church, Martin Luther, wrote, “If you’re not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don’t want to go there.” The famous Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, wrote, “In your most depressing seasons, you are to get joy and peace through believing.” And our own John Wesley said, “Sour godliness is the Devil’s religion.”
Yes, the devil’s religion is one of sour despair in Paradise. Ours is a faith of joy and laughter even in the midst of a fallen world. Full joy and hope, not despair, that is our religion. Full joy of knowing we are saved by the mercy and grace of Christ, that is our creed to live by. I leave you with this blessing from Romans 15:13, which Rev. Spurgeon quoted whenever he felt depression and edged toward despair: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Foley, Alabama