Joy Made Complete

By Phil Braudaway-Bauman

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit…. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:4-11, selections

“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Galatians 5:22

Little Sylvie sat comfortably in her mother’s arms, intently watching the preparations for her baptism. But just before her soft locks were dampened through the ancient and sacred ritual, we made space for congregational promises to the young child, together welcoming Sylvie into Christ’s church, and inviting her “to share with us the cost and joy of discipleship.”

It’s an unusual and oddly specific invitation – to share the joy of discipleship. Among the values we identify as central to our faith, joy sometimes gets lost or downplayed, perhaps a result of the seriousness with which we approach our faith commitments. Yet, in the New Testament joy is portrayed as foundational to Christian life, the natural counterpart to love, which we claim as the identifying marker of Christian discipleship.

In his farewell message and summation of his ministry, as found in the Gospel of John, Jesus calls his disciples to “abide” in his love, as he abides in God’s. He paints an image of a community of mutuality – God’s love as expressed in him becomes his love expressed in the lives of his followers. The occasion was one of such momentous import – the night he would be betrayed, arrested, and led to crucifixion – we may then find it surprising to hear his motivation: Jesus wants his disciples to understand these things, he says, “so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

Complete joy. How do we come about obtaining such a thing? Writing to churches in northern Asia Minor, the apostle Paul describes a life in the Spirit as producing fruit – “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness…” – a harvest of qualities that describes as inherent in or the natural outcomes of a life of faith. But I have often wondered if instead these fruits require cultivation, the product of hard work and attention, an active effort in discipleship.

Joy is surely different from happiness, a more transient experiential emotional state shaped by external circumstances. Our culture is inordinately focused on seeking happiness, personalized and self-oriented; the pursuit of happiness is, after all, enshrined as an “unalienable Right” in one of our nation’s foundational documents. Yet, happiness, once acquired, is often fleeting, a wispy and ephemeral state whose waning leaves us empty and dissatisfied. There is much about our world and society that drains our attempts to find happiness, perhaps most strikingly exemplified in the currents of cruelty, racism, and denigration of our society’s most vulnerable that buffet us in the national political discourse. I wouldn’t expect happiness to survive such an onslaught.

Yet joy appears to be deeper, more resilient, a defining expression of personhood itself, rooted in a life in the Spirit. I find joy difficult to pin down, a puzzle to incorporate, yet remarkably easy to identify: I regularly encounter folks in our church community who embody joy, some of whom have experienced harsh and difficult circumstances. Joy is an appealing quality, and when in its presence, I appreciate Paul’s naming it as a fruit, a product of a life in the Spirit. Like fruit, joy both exemplifies and expresses the identity of its originating plant, the vine that is Jesus.

As the service drew to a close and the soaring melodies of Bach’s Prelude in E-Flat filled the sanctuary, Sylvie stood on her mother’s lap, turned to face the congregation, and waved her arms in time to the music, radiating complete joy. In this season when happiness is threatened, when our heightened concern for the state of our world flares into anxiety and threatens descent into despair, let’s turn our attention to joy. With sight focused ever more clearly on our calling to love, let’s marry love to joy. With Jesus’ joy in us, may our joy be complete.