Overflowing Joy

At that very moment, Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness.”

                                                                                                    Luke 10:21

I would have loved to see Jesus overflow with joy. I don’t recall having read such a description of Jesus elsewhere, but I can imagine it. Can you? 

This verse is part of the story of the seventy-two who have been sent out and have now returned to share their experiences. Imagine the excitement they brought, and Jesus, in the thick of their excitement, exclaiming with joy to God! It is a glimpse, surely, of what heaven must be, and the overflowing joy that is part and parcel of eternal life. 

I’ve had those moments of overflowing joy, and I’m sure you’ve had them too. Last weekend, I was in the North Georgia mountains, and one morning, as I sat outside in the crisp, cool air, I saw the sun strike the mountain in front of me. It brought tears to my eyes, a moment of overflowing joy. We experience such moments, and most of them take place in events of everyday life. Something clicks, and we are present in a way that is hard to describe. If we do try to describe it, we cannot adequately convey why it is such a moment for us.

Maybe such moments are when we actually experience the world with childlike wonder. Jesus speaks of things being hidden from the wise and intelligent and shown instead to babies. To overflow with joy requires that we lay aside being “reasonable” and embrace imaginative delight, that we receive God’s kingdom, which is everywhere, all around us, as a child.

Are you open to experiencing overflowing joy? Are you willing to let go of stiff, stuffy adulting to see the ordinary as extraordinary, with the eyes of a child?

Tastes of Heaven

 

But our gusty emotions say to me that we have

Tasted heaven many times: these delicacies

Are left over from some larger party.      

--From Tasting Heaven by Robert Bly

 

If tastes of heaven are the tidbits from a larger party,

then what was the larger version of the soft mist I enjoyed on my cheeks

this morning? Was it the residue from some heavenly celebration,

where bottles of champagne erupted to celebrate

the blooming of tulips, or the woven engineering of a swift’s nest?

 

I wonder what gets celebrated in heaven.

I imagine the minute, tiny, barely noticed (by us) events,

fattening buds, pink hue on a cloud, the way

sunlight filters through upon forest floor,

the first breath drawn by a foal—these

surely elicit uproarious response.

If I could count the misty drips as they touch my skin,

each drop a celebration to last a lifetime, ah,

this is a foretaste of eternity!