Friday, November 7, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
 Joy of Jesus
I myself am convinced about you, my brothers and sisters,
that you yourselves are full of goodness,
filled with all knowledge, and able to admonish one another.
At Austin’s Regional Clinic yesterday our foot doctor looked at an x-ray of my left baby toe. As often happens, it didn’t hurt much when I was in her office. Really, it doesn’t hurt very much anytime, but it does push into the next toe more than it should (no matter how often I tell it to not to). Dr. Sara suggested a cotton ball between my toes and orthotics for my shoes.
On a weekday morning, most of the patients in the clinic are older, retired, probably with plenty to do anyway but on a flexible schedule. That’s me, and Margaret, who came along with me. I think of this privilege mostly paid for by insurance, and I am grateful as well as willing to poke a little fun at myself for seeing a doctor for such a small complaint. Of course small complaints sometimes precede something serious. And again, being older, I think that might happen more often.
Margaret likes to talk in the elevator, and others joined her. I found myself thinking about their lives beyond the clinic, imagining their friends and families, hobbies and skills, professions and prayers. Because we’re less pre-occupied with making a living, I sometimes feel over-occupied with things that don’t matter much to anyone, even to me. I do things for the sake of doing things, rather than for the sake of others. Over time I suffer from what Henri Nouwen called “rootlessness.”
Jesus warns people about living rootless lives. He says, “Remain in me as I remain in you. I love you with the same love that the Father loves me.” He is speaking about the inner connectedness of life. Life-giving connectedness is what allows Jesus to move out of the places of death toward life. The experience of joy that Jesus offers is not happiness. It is not just feeling “up.” Joy is something else. The joy of Jesus is never disconnected from sorrow. – Henri Nouwen
Father Nouwen’s words are convincing. He worked hard to rewrite his essays and thoughts to keep the words simple and insights clear. “The joy of Jesus is never disconnected from sorrow.” I want to sit with those words and let the words understand me. My Enneagram (type seven) exposes my unwillingness to see the dark side of things, even when there doesn’t seem to be any other side. I am an “enthusiast – spontaneous, versatile, acquisitive and scattered.” Suffering? What is that?
When Luther says to his flock that prayer, meditation and suffering are three necessary threads of active faith, I agree … but then I find it hard to “suffer” very long before the sun comes out. Me and Annie, right?
I know that’s ok. But I also believe Henri’s insight about Jesus is accurate. Henri has been gone these many years (since 1996), but his care and concern for others ,often at his own expense, lives on. Fr. Nouwen was probably an Enneagram type two, a “helper – generous, demonstrative, people-pleasing and possessive.” Of course we can’t help but project our own strengths and weaknesses onto Jesus; that’s just we fallen folks do. “The joy of Jesus is never disconnected from sorrow.” I’m sure that was true of Henri. But I think it is also true of Jesus.
When Fanny Crosby was six weeks old a traveling doctor treated her eye infection with hot mustard poultices, and she was blinded for life. Her parents took her to many specialists, but nothing helped. Over her lifetime she wrote 8000 hymns, and we sing many of them over and over still. When Pastor Matt spoke last week about the fourth gift within God’s great gift of justification – “joy in tribulation and suffering” – he told us about Fanny Crosby and read the first poem she wrote, the first of 8000, when she was eight years old.
Oh, what a happy soul I am!
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don’t!
To weep and sigh because I’m blind,
I cannot, and I won’t!
(Romans 15, Psalm 98, 1 John 2, Luke 16)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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