What gives me joy? Winning the office pool or the lottery? A substantial increase in my salary? The birth of my first child or grandchild? A feeling of being loved by my spouse? These joys may be real but, unfortunately, temporary. What gives me lasting joy? Or who gives me a joy that no one or nothing can take away or diminish? God!
What has God done that gives me such joy? Everything which is good, every blessing, gift which is worthwhile – all comes from God. He has created me in His image and likeness. Joy! He has shared His own divine life with me through the unmerited gift of grace, calling me His adopted son or daughter. Joy! He has loved me beyond expectation and unconditionally. To know that I am loved is Joy! He has taken upon Himself my sins, He gave His life for my life, He died on the cross for my salvation. Joy! He shares His Body and Blood in the sacramental sign of Eucharist. Joy! He forgives my sins, no matter how grievous or how often I have rebelled against Him. Joy! He has promised me eternal life in glory with Him, if I die in relationship with Him. Joy! He has poured His Spirit upon me, anointing me with the power of His gifts. Joy! He has incorporated me into the community of faith, His Church. Joy!
In all these (and more), my joy is not so much in what He has and continues to do for me, unworthy as I am. No, my joy is in the One who has given me such marvelous signs of love. My joy is in the Lord! Jesus as Lord and Savior is my joy! In the words of St. Paul: "Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again. Rejoice!" (Phil 4:4).
To really and fully appreciate this faith/fact "“ that Jesus is my Lord and Savior "“ I need to look at sin and its consequences.
We are created in the image and likeness of God. We are chosen by God in Christ to be holy, blameless in His sight, to be full of love, to be His adopted sons and daughters, so as to praise Him forever in glory. Because of this, my heart should be restless until it rests in God, the beginning and end of my life.
Through the sin of Adam of Eve we come into the world as creatures, but not as sons and daughters. Because of this sin we are born in alienation, separated from relationship with God. As Psalm 51 states: "Indeed, in guilt was I born, and in sin my mother conceived me" (Ps 51:7). By nature I am created in the image and likeness of God, body, soul and spirit with knowledge and free will. Because I am a spiritual being, I will live eternally. To the original sin is added my own personal sins, freely chosen. Again Psalm 51 acknowledges this reality. "For I acknowledge my offense, and my sin is before me always. Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight" (Ps 51:5-6). Remaining in this state of alienation, if I die without salvation, I would live eternally alienated from God in nothingness. The truth will be clearly branded into my mind: I am meant for God, but because of my personal sin added to separation from birth, I will know the hell of existence without God.
However, by grace I come to know the full revelation of God's merciful love, shown me in the death and resurrection of Jesus, my Reconciler and Redeemer. By grace, I can choose to align my will with God's and thus live eternally, but in glory with God and all His saints and angels. Listen to the joy which Paul came to as he reflected on this mysterious truth: "All of us were once of their company; we lived at the level of the flesh, following every whim and fancy, and so by nature deserved God's wrath like the rest. But God is rich in mercy; because of His great love for us he brought us to life with Christ when we were dead in sin. By this favor you were saved. Both with and in Christ Jesus He raised us up and gave us a place in the heavens, that in the ages to come He might display the great wealth of His favor, manifested by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. I repeat, it is owing to His favor that salvation is yours through faith" (Eph 2:3-8).
I can't earn salvation. It is a free grace/gift from the Father, in Jesus, through the Spirit. On the cross He took away sin and guilt, shame and the effects of the second death. He nailed my sins to the cross. He became sin for us. He became the scapegoat sent into the desert with our sins heaped upon Him. He became the Paschal Lamb, slaughtered for our sake and offered in sacrifice. His life for our life. His forgiveness, my cleansing; His healing, my restoration; His mercy, my newness.
Was not this realization of unconditional forgiveness the joy of one of the thieves on the cross? He heard Jesus say: "Father, forgive them; they do not know what they do." At first, he couldn't believe what he heard this Jesus say. For he heard the verbal attacks and the blasphemies of the bystanders and of his fellow criminal. Any yet, this Jesus, who is mocked as the Messiah, hanging on the cross like himself, forgave them. Those words and the grace they released stirred this man of crime to first confess his own sins. First he addressed the other criminal: "Have you no fear of God, seeing you are under the same sentence? We deserve it, after all. We are only paying the price for what we've done, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then, in anticipation of Paul's words in Rome, he professed both on his lips what was in his heart: "Jesus, remember me when you enter upon your reign" Lk 24:40-42).
