After I watched the movie, I read the book Bruce wrote about his experience in learning Jesus...how he studied the Scriptures and learned as he read just how filled with unabashed joy Jesus really was.
Amazing how when you read about a joyful Jesus...you see how true it is. He loved life. He loved people. And he loved the Father.
***
This week I went to the Marion Easter Pageant...a community passion play down in Marion. I was in it for the first time when I was two...and I was in it ever year after that until my mid-twenties, when they had to stop holding it, because the building where it was presented was condemned. This year it came back, and for the first time, I was not in it.
I sat in my seat and watched the drama unfold...and a young pastor from the community played the role of Jesus. {In that play they call it the Christus.} He was unlike any Christus I'd ever seen in over 20 years of being part of that play.
He was filled with joy. He rushed toward people and greeted them with massive hugs. He smiled broadly and swung children around and showed a joyful servant's heart.
It spoke to me so profoundly because I'd slipped away from absorbing the joy Jesus actually had for the people He served then...and the joy He has for me now.
Jesus is joy.
This is the week when we remember His sacrifice for us...when we remember the horror and the sorrow and the dark day...and those things do bear remembering and our deepest gratitude.
But that Jesus of joy is the one who emerged from the tomb early that Sunday morning.
Jesus is joy. What if we lived for Him with that same joy?
No comments:
Post a Comment