The Rev.
Frank Logue The Gospel of Mega Joy “I bring you good news of great joy!” With these words, an angel announces the birth of Israel’s
promised Messiah to shepherds on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Good news of great joy! Now
that is something I could use. After all the bad news of tragedy this year, it’s time
for good news of great joy. The
Gospel of Luke, like the rest of the New Testament was, of course, written in Greek.
“I bring you Good News of great joy!” is a very good translation, but I find the
Greek itself also interesting for it contains a couple of words that we use in English. In
the Greek, we are told that when the shepherds saw the angel, “evfobh,qhsan fo,bon me,gan.” The root words there
are our words phobia or fear. The shepherds were afraid with a mega fear. Then the angel
says, “euvaggeli,zomai u`mi/n cara.n mega,lhn.”
It could also be translated a little more coarsely as “I bring you evangelism of mega
joy.” Or “I bring you gospel of mega joy.” To the mega fear of the
shepherds, the angel brings mega joy. The Greek
word for good news is the word we Anglicanize, or pronounce poorly in English, as
Evangelism. The Middle English word for it was Gospel. Both Evangelism and Gospel mean
“good news.” An idea central to Christianity is that we have good news to share
with the whole world. Joy to the World, the Lord is come! Evangelism
gets a black eye these days from the financial and moral failings of televangelists to the
overly insistent pleadings of Christian friends and neighbors. That’s why “I
bring you evangelism of mega joy” sounds funny. After all, how many people hear the
door bell ring, look out to see a Christian friend with a big Bible in their hand and say,
“Joy to the world! The Baptists have come to get me saved again!” The
promise of the Gospel, the good news, according to Luke is however a life of great joy.
The Greek word for great is mega. Luke begins his Gospel with joy, here in the
proclamation of the angel. And then Luke ends his gospel with joy as he tells how after
Jesus’ ascension into heaven the disciples returned to Jerusalem with mega joy. Mega
joy is the promise that Christianity holds out to each of us. What
exactly would mega joy be like? It might be easier to show you. Here is a short video clip
from the movie Home Alone that is a visual translation of the Greek cara.n mega,lhn—mega joy. [short
video clip showing the main character after he learns his family is gone. First, he jumps
up and down on his parent’s bed eating popcorn and then he runs around the house,
screaming and waving his arms, obviously deliriously happy.] That is
what the angel proclaimed to the shepherds—mega joy. But if
mega joy is the promise of Christianity, then where is the pay off? When exactly does this
mega joy kick in? After all, Christians do not always seem quite as joyful as the boy in Home
Alone (thank God). It would be easy to say joy comes in heaven. However, that’s
not what the Bible teaches. Joy is also to come now. After all, the disciples experienced
great joy. The Apostle Paul wrote often of joy, even in the midst of suffering. If those
guys experienced joy, can’t we all? There are
a few remarkable examples from history. Blaise Pascal was a 17th century
mathematician and philosopher. Pascal was a thinker’s thinker, a person of great
reasoning ability who came to learn that reason did not know everything. Among other
things, Pascal is remembered for his work that would lead to modern calculators. When
Pascal died in 1662, a friend found a note sewed into the lining of his vest close to his
heart. In the brief note, Pascal recounted a mystical experience of God that occurred
eight years before his death on November 23, 1654. Pascal, philosopher and mathematician,
encountered the living God he says from about half past ten at night until about half past
midnight. He described it like this: FIRE. GOD of Abraham, GOD of
Isaac, GOD of Jacob Pascal encountered
the living God through prayer and words seem to fail to describe the experience. He
started his note with the word FIRE in all capital letters, then wrote joy, joy, joy,
tears of joy. Pascal experienced mega joy. I have one more
experience of joy to share with you from history before we return to the angel’s
promise of good news of great joy. The great composer Ludwig von Beethoven wrote his
masterpiece the Ninth Symphony, which he also called his Ode to Joy. Beethoven wrote this
ninth symphony ten years after the eighth symphony. In the intervening decade, the
composer experienced a period of profound sadness. During that time, Beethoven lost his
hearing, several close friends and patrons of his work died, leaving him with an ever
dwindling income, and finally his brother died. During this time,
Beethoven wrote in his diary, “God, help me! Thou seest me deserted by all
mankind.” Beethoven never lost faith in God during his distress. The composer wrote
to a friend saying, “God knows my innermost soul…and will surely someday relieve
me from these afflictions.” In the midst of his
hardship, Beethoven sat down to compose a symphony his then deaf ears could never hear.
Listening to the tune in his mind, Beethoven wrote his own Ode to Joy. At the premiere,
the great resounding notes at the conclusion of the fourth movement had barely ceased when
the crowd broke into thunderous applause. Beethoven heard nothing. Then the solo
contraalto could see that the composer did not yet know that the composition of his mind
had stirred the audience to joy, so he turned Beethoven around to see the joy in the faces
of the admiring crowd. Joy, joy, tears of joy! Here is that
conclusion to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Listen to what mega joy sounded like to
Beethoven. [play the final 26
seconds of Ode to Joy with a big musical crescendo exploding in joy.] That is what good
news of mega joy sounds like. Where can we find
mega joy like that in a world where people hijack airplanes to fly them into a skyscraper?
What does mega joy look like in a world where pain and suffering is all too real. Forget
the tragedies of a national scale. There is enough loss in a broken marriage, enough
suffering in the hurtful words from a friend, enough pain in the grief for a close friend
or family member who dies, to make mega joy seem like a vague hope. We have enough mega
fear these days—fear of anthrax, smallpox, smoking shoes on an airliner. Where can we
find mega joy? First, joy is not found in cars, houses, furniture, clothes, and other
things. For there is neither joy in the abundance of possesions or the lack of possesions.
Joy is not found in a job, great honors, or the esteem of your peers. Joy can never be
found through alcohol, drugs, whether prescribed or illegal, or any other diversion from
reality, for true joy is grounded in reality. To find the joy
promised by the angel, we have to follow where the angel directed the shpherds. The angels
were to travel to Bethlehem. There they would be guided by a sign. The shepherds were to
find a baby wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. If we want to find
the promised mega joy, then we too must go peer into the darkness of a cave used as a
stable to find the light of the world in the most unlikely place. The good news is that
the God of all creation came to us vulnerable, weak, totally reliant on humans for his
care. Jesus was and is Immanuel, God with us. God became with us
through the person of Jesus. God was and is with us still. God knows our pain and
suffering. So, the promise of mega joy is not a promise to live a life without pain or
suffering. Christianity offers no insurance policy against evil, pain, suffering, and
loss. Christianity offers instead the knowledge that God has pitched his tent among us.
God has completely identified with every part of our lives. God knows your mega fear and
wants to give you in its place mega joy. With your
mind’s eye, travel with me to a dark cave in Bethlehem. The cows, the donkey that
brought Mary to this town, they all add there own smells and sounds. Now look in that
manger in Bethlehem and all you will see is a baby, a weak, vulnerable, innocent baby.
Then consider how this powerless infant is God’s plan to come into the world. God
became flesh and lived among us. That is what the angel promised saying, “I bring you
the gospel of mega joy!” To which we can add
our own refrain, Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let us receive him as our King. Amen. |
King of Peace Episcopal Church + P.O. Box 2526 + Kingsland, Georgia 31548-2526