Jesus Rejoices in the Holy Spirit!
Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit! (Luke 10:21-24) At first glance seems an odd thing for Jesus to do. Jesus rejoices! The Holy Spirit, as theology teaches us, is the love between the Father and the Son. When understood this way, as a relationship of love, we can’t imagine Jesus not rejoicing in the Spirit.What could cause Jesus to experience great delight and gladness? Lucky for us Jesus has to share the pleasure he feels! Joy shares. I once read a story about an atheist who converted to Christianity not from the experience of suffering and lack of meaning, but from an experience he had of tremendous happiness. He had to share it. So, he shared it with God and he shared it with his disciples. Jesus rejoices that anyone can experience the gift of the presence of God the Father! Just as he experiences his Father’s presence.
Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem, the city of David, for the census. God uses this human element to fulfill the prophecy that the Messiah was to be born in this city. When Mary and Joseph arrive in the town to find that there is no room for them anywhere. They are left to find a place outside, in a cave (Luke 2:7). There in the cave Joseph and Mary go about making preparations for the birth of Jesus. Maybe not the most adequate place for the Son of God to enter this world. But, God is okay with staying on the outside until a place in our hearts opens up and he can fit inside.
Doug accompanied me on a trip to Nicaragua, along with his daughters. They had brought some items to give away to the poor that we would be working with. Doug had brought some clothes, but being a taller man, he was going to have a tough time finding someone who would fit into the clothes that he had brought. He would tell me daily he was looking for, as he called it, “the person”. Each morning he brought along his suitcase with the clothes with the hope of encountering “the person”. One day we visited a community that was next to the town dump. Many of the people from this community would spend the day scavenging through the dump to find things they could recycle or sell. Doug joined them on the heaps of garbage. Later that afternoon he found me to tell me, not that he found “the person”, but that he had found his Jesus. For the last couple of days of the trip, he just couldn’t stop sharing about his Jesus. He found a young man who would fit into his clothes! As we begin this Advent season we meditate and rejoice on the gift of the Father to us. He gave us his Son, Jesus. Jesus, who fits perfectly into our hearts.
