Jesus Is the Reason for the Season!

 

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:9–11 ESV).

 

As I wrote yesterday, joy comes from being connected to the Holy Spirit through Jesus. In our reading today, Jesus gives us the metaphor of the vine and the branches. When we abide in him, when we make our dwelling with him, when we stay connected to him, and remain in him, we will bear fruit. He explains what abiding in him looks like and how love leads to obedience. Then he tells his disciples why he tells them these things. He tells us why he wants us to abide in him: I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete (v. 11).

 

Jesus wants to share his joy with us. This comes from being united to the Father! It comes from the intimacy he experiences with him, from the sense of abiding and permanent love. It comes from the experience of what theologians across the ages have called the beatific vision. Jesus invites us to abide in him—like a branch on a vine—because that is how our joy is made complete. As Christians, we are invited into the relationship of love that the Father has for the Son, that the Son has for the Father, and that the Holy Spirit shares between the Father and Son. For those who are united to Christ, it’s as if they’re caught up into the joyful, loving communion between the Son and Father. This is the key to joy.

 

I often think of how many of us have hobbies we’re passionate about. It may be a sport, music, cooking, or writing. When you’re doing what you’re good at and what you love you might describe it as feeling like you’re doing what you were made to do. You might describe it as “being in the zone.” The “zone” is that sweet spot where everything is just right. But “the zone” is fleeting. It fades when the game ends, when you close your laptop after a day of writing, or when you finish a project. But it does not last.

 

Wellbeing is different. It’s flourishing and thriving in what you were made to be and do. As humans we were made to abide in God, to dwell in a loving, glorifying relationship with him. That’s true wellbeing. That’s what we were made for. True joy, the abiding pervasive sense of wellbeing, comes from being connected to Jesus. That’s what Jesus came to offer. At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation, the fact that the Son became flesh to make possible the union of man with God. We celebrate the fact that Jesus came to make joy a possibility for us. Jesus really is “the reason for the season”!