JOY

 

I was reminiscing with an old friend the other day. We laughed about the memories of our youth and I cried when our conversation was over. I am often taken back to my past during this hard adjustment to what I consider the last stage of my life.

I reflected on how carefree we were but on serious reflection, we were not really happy because we yearned for what we did not have, marriage and family. It seems to be in the nature of all mortals to long for something else other than what they already have. I guess it is because we are so intent on being happy all the time that we always think something else will give us that.

What we forget is that this life was not designed for consistent and lasting happiness but only for snippets of such so that we will have the motivation for its pursuit in the long run. If true happiness could be found in this life, we would cease to strive for our eternal destiny, which can offer us not only lasting happiness but also JOY. As Lehi put it so wisely to his children: “Adam fell that men might be, and men are, that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25)

So what is this joy? Immediately following this statement, Lehi expounded on redemption through Jesus Christ, obedience to His commandments, and eternal life. The Saviour confirmed this when he said: “….in this world your joy is not full, but in me your joy is full” (D&C 101:36). He elaborated on that by saying we should not fear death, nor care for the life of the body, but to look beyond, to eternal life (D&C v 37). In other words, look toward what I can give you, which is the fullness of joy as you embrace eternal life. This is the happiness worth waiting for.

The downside of the pursuit of happiness here and now is losing the eternal perspective. Some of us  get confused and think that happiness can be found in unholy places, with Satan’s counterfeits which give us pleasure in the guise of happiness and joy.

I know of one mother who encouraged her son to ‘come out of the closet’ and be ‘who he is’ so he can be happy. He is now a chronic alcoholic, inactive and alone. And what does she do to support him? She drinks with him to make him feel better about his choice of escapism. She too has turned her back on the Church.

Everything in this life is fleeting. This is only a temporary state of being in our eternal existence. The pursuit of happiness should not be our objective here but to prepare for life everlasting.

This is what Christ’s sacrifice was all about. Deep within His pain, was the potential for our joy for it was for our ‘joy that was set before Him’ that He endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2).

Who is like unto Thee,

Jehovah, our God?

Who protects the weak

And the broken hearted;

Who sorrows for the lost

And pays the price of

The crucible cost.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Glory of Jesus Christ by Ralph of Gratis Graphics)

THE WONDER OF SCRIPTURES

The most exhilarating part of the Saviour's earthly life would have to be post resurrection. I can only imagine the hope and speculation that would have circulated in the midst of His followers as the news spread that He lived again. My favourite of the events recorded of that time is his walk with two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32) because this seemingly unimportant event has a connection to something very dear to my heart. It is of great marvel to me that when the two men recounted the story of His crucifixion and resurrection with dubious narration, the Saviour did not reveal himself to them to prove the story was true. Instead He chose to expound all the scriptures concerning himself (Luke 24:27) because they are they which testify of Him and His personification as the Messiah and the Saviour of the world (John 5:39). It was not until after the scriptures were expounded to them that they understood who He was. I have often wondered what the lesson was in all this. What was the Saviour trying to teach them? Perhaps that having the scriptures is the same as having Him in their midst as with the scriptures comes the power of the Spirit to enable all to believe in His divinity. This is attested by the two disciples who proclaimed upon His departure from them, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he........opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32).

Who do you see when you study the scriptures? The brave Jeremiah, the poetic Isaiah, the obedient Nephi, the repentant Alma? It is hard not to see these prominent and prolific figures. The challenge is and always will be, however, to see Christ on every page; whether in prophecies, in doctrine, in His dealings with humanity or valuable lessons learnt through the characters enshrined in the holy writ. I will tell you what I see: in the Old Testament I see the merciful Jehovah; in the New Testament I see the loving Saviour; in the Book of Mormon, I see the promised Messiah; and in the Doctrine and Covenants I see the majestic Christ. I have mentioned Ahab before who was the most wicked king of the northern kingdom of Israel. So wicked was he that Elijah told him the Lord will annihilate his whole posterity. Ahab did not repent but it took just one episode of sorrow on Ahab's part to evoke Jehovah's mercy. Because his sorrow brought him to the depths of humility the Lord told Elijah that his punishment will not be meted out in his life time but in the life time of his son (1 Kings 21:29). And did not the Saviour prove that 'greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends' (John 15:13) as he willingly remained on the cross until the suffering was complete and finished (John 19:28-30)? And who could not feel the anguish of Nephi as he prayed all day for deliverance from persecution and what joy must have filled his soul as he heard the expected Messiah say: "Lift up your head and be of good cheer......for on the morrow come I into the world...(3 Nephi 1:13)?  And who can read Doctrine and Covenants and not be in awe of the majestic Christ who has overcome all, and risen above all '.....for the Lord is God, and beside him there is no Saviour....Great is His wisdom, marvelous are his ways, and the extent of his doings none can find out' (D&C 76:1,2)

There was a time in my life when I felt I had nothing to live for. This is when the scriptures became my saving grace. They who testified of Him gave me strength to endure and to hope for 'life eternal because of my faith in him according to the promise' (Moroni 7:41). They renewed me because I came to know Him who renews all things and makes all things possible; Him who brings life to all that is dead and recovers all that is lost. In Him alone is safe harbour. In Him alone is endurance. In Him alone is life everlasting.

May we all believe that there is a life beyond our worst moments and may we find this belief within the pages of a book that can give us this life as expressed in a story of a man whose business was failing terribly and who was so deep in trouble that he was contemplating suicide. As a last resort he went to a priest who advised him to take a beach chair and a Bible to the water's edge, put the Bible on his lap, to open it and let the wind rifle the pages and when it rests on a page he should read the first words he sees. He assured him this will be his answer that will tell him what to do. A year later this same businessman went back to the priest in apparent affluence and success. The priest asked him if he did what he instructed him to do. The man assured him he did.

"You sat on a beach chair with the Bible in your lap?"
"Absolutely"
"You let the pages rifle until they stopped?"
"Absolutely"
"And what were the first words you saw?"
"Chapter II"

LIVING WATER

When Christ encountered the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well He told her that He can give her water far superior to the one she was constantly drawing to assuage the thirst of her household. (John 4:5-15).  The water he said he could give her was living water 'springing up into everlasting life' (John 4:14) as opposed to water that satisfies the body which is destined to die, thus making the well water 'dead water' with a used by date.

In performing its main object of springing up into everlasting life, the living water also heals here and now.  It heals the broken hearted, spiritual wounds caused by sin, emotional and physical suffering and defects of the mind.  Just before the Saviour returns, the scriptures inform us, "a new spring will appear at the temple in Jerusalem and its waters will flow eastward to the Dead Sea which will be healed of its dead and stagnant condition. The Dead Sea, or any other body of water which is stagnant, is so because of two reasons.  First, it has little or no inflow; and second, it has little or no outflow.  In its stagnant condition it becomes lifeless water.  Since it is not renewed with fresh water, it cannot in turn pass living water onto other streams and bodies of water, nor can it support life within itself". (Larry Keeler, Living Water or Dead Sea) The spring which will appear at the temple in Jerusalem is symbolic of Christ's power to heal anything that is dead, either spiritually or physically.

When I reflect on the incident at Jacob's well, I feel it is important to understand why the person Christ chose to tell of the living water was this particular woman. His solemn invitation to her, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink", was a plain and open claim of Messiahship. In making this claim he identified himself as the very Jehovah who had promised drink to the thirsty through an outpouring of the Spirit (McConkie, DNTC, 1:445-46). This is a pretty serious declaration to make since it either meant that he was a blasphemer worthy of death or he was in fact the God of Israel. What is more astonishing is the fact that He made this declaration to a Samaritan woman rather than a person of authority. Surely the latter would have carried much more weight and bring His claim to more prominence. However, as the Saviour proved with subsequent declarations, those in authority were not meek of heart who were willing to accept His claim. In my mind Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman was not by chance. When all of Jewry chose to travel an indirect and longer route from Judea to Galilee rather than go through Samaria, Jesus chose to travel the direct route and sat himself down at Jacob's well at noon having sent his disciples to procure provisions. There are two facts worthy of notice here:

1. Samaritans were an impure race, remnants of the 10 tribes who had intermarried with Assyrians and other foreigners and even though they boasted that Jacob was their father, the Jews denied this vehemently and considered them 'more unclean than a Gentile of any other nationality' (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 172). Because of this disdain Samaritans rejected the prophetic writings now known as the Old Testament. The ill-feeling between Jews and Samaritans had been growing for centuries, and at the time of the Saviour's ministry, the feeling between the two parties had grown to intense hatred. It goes without saying that a Jew would not be caught dead speaking to a Samaritan.
2. The Saviour knew well the woman who came to draw water from the well. He knew that she had had five husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband. This was a fallen woman who chose to come to the well in the heat of the day rather than the cool of the morning when it was the custom for women to gather and enjoy social interaction. The timing of her visit to the well emphasized her despised and outcast position. In general Jewish men didn't speak to Jewish women much in public, especially not to ones of ill repute. For a Jewish man to speak to a Samaritan woman in public would have been unheard of. And here is Christ, the Messiah, speaking to a fallen, Samaritan, woman.  It is obvious that he was not politically correct on three counts.

Through Jesus's encounter with her, the Samaritan woman became the symbol of the downtrodden and the lowliest of us who can qualify for eternal life. The Saviour came to heal the sick and bind the broken hearted. He did not minister to those who were well and rejected Him in the pride of their hearts. This is why He mixed with the publicans and the sinners. How else could he have demonstrated that His living water could heal us and give us eternal life? When I think of the Samaritan woman and consider His important message, I also see through my 21st century view the Saviour sending a message to the women of our day, a message of healing and hope. A great number of women today feel fragmented and damaged  having been divorced, widowed, abandoned or simply ignored by the opposite sex. Among the damaged are women who have been embroiled in sin, abused and enslaved in oppression. Perhaps they are all depicted in this Samaritan woman. No doubt having had five husbands came at a price. We who live in this modern world where so much suffering abounds feel the oppression of sin, affliction, hardship and temptation. Some of us are barely keeping our heads above the water and some of us are scraping up sludge of dry wells.

In all our suffering and stumbling in the dark we tend to turn to the ways of the world to fill us. Sometimes we get so blinded by the glare of this world that we dive headlong into Jacob's well eager to assuage our thirst with that which does not satisfy, benefit or fulfill us. We seek for the corruptible things of this earth that have no lasting power to fill our cracks, heal our sorrows and make up for our lack. We think that this dismal telestial world has treasures to offer us that will somehow make us whole. The truth is that the lustre of this world can only be seen during the day. When the night falls, the emptiness is still there, the pain exposed, the suffering unbearable.

Drawing water from a well used to be a thankless and miserable daily burden designated to women. Water is heavy, hard to pull out of a well and carry home, much like the cares of this world. The water the Samaritan woman drew out of the well was dead heavy water of this earth representing the burdens of this world. If you would but drink from the fountain of living water you would not thirst anymore for you would be filled with that which matters most, that which is lasting, that which will speak peace to the deepest recesses of your soul. Then the suffering will be bearable and even conquerable. Then the lack will not matter and the cracks will diminish and fade. Then you can look forward to the living water within you springing up into everlasting life. Then you can be filled with hope and happiness believing Him who has said, "....eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9). He can give all this to you. Be filled and thirst no more.

"Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonder of your Eternal King! And ye rivers, and brooks, and rills, flow down with gladness. Let the woods and all the trees of the field praise the Lord; and ye solid rocks weep for joy! And let the sun, moon, and the morning stars sing together, and let all the sons of God shout for joy! And let the eternal creations declare his name forever and ever!" (D&C 128:23)