Christ Shares His Happiness With Us

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Which of these happinesses did Jesus experience and enjoy?

• Nature happiness: Enjoying the creation
• Social happiness: Enjoying friends and family
• Vocational happiness: Enjoying our jobs
• Physical happiness: Enjoying health and strength
• Intellectual happiness: Enjoying study and learning
• Humor happiness: Enjoying jokes and funny stories.
• Spiritual happiness: Enjoying God through His Word and Spirit

I recently wrote about the seven kinds of happiness God has left for us to enjoy in the world, concluding with the question: Which of these happinesses did Jesus experience and enjoy?

My answer: All of them! He’s the only one who experienced them all in perfect proportion and place.

Perhaps the one we might choke on a bit is the idea of Jesus having a sense of humor, laughing with friends and family, etc.

This really all comes down to one question: Was humor part of perfect pre-fall humanity?

If not, then not only did Jesus not experience it, neither should we. Humor is a consequence of sin, part of the post-fall world, and therefore should be shunned and avoided.

But if it was part of perfect pre-fall humanity, then there’s no reason why Jesus would not enjoy or even tell a funny story, especially in his childhood and youth. We’re on fairly safe ground there. I do question whether that would continue as he aged and matured. As He grew in knowledge of His work, as He entered upon public ministry, and especially as His sufferings increased exponentially throughout the following three years, He would increasingly become “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” The Gospels reveal him to be a deeply serious man, and no wonder.

Christ’s Supreme Joy
Having said that, there’s no question that Christ’s supreme joy among the seven was spiritual joy: His delight in His Father’s will, His Father’s Word, and His father’s presence. Without totally excluding the other six kinds of happiness, that’s the joy that He was especially speaking of when He prayed to His Father: “These things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13).

But what specifically was the source of His happiness at that time? When we come across a happy person, a person who’s smiling, we ask them, “What’s so funny?” or “Why are you so happy?” and they’ll tell you about something that had just happened or that they’d just heard or thought about. So what was there in the run up to John 17:13 that made Jesus so happy that he spoke of “my joy”? There were multiple ingredients:

• The joy of God’s presence – communing with God in prayer (v. 1)
• The joy of God’s sovereignty (2)
• The joy of God’s salvation (v. 2, 8 )
• The joy of knowing God (v. 3)
• The joy of glorifying God on the earth (v. 4)
• The joy of doing God’s work (v. 4; John 4:32)
• The joy of God’s heavenly glory (v. 5)
• The joy of communicating God’s Word (v. 6, 8, 13, 14)
• The joy of God being obeyed (v. 6)
• The joy of God’s election (9, 10)
• The joy of God’s preservation (11, 12)
• The joy of a returning to God with the ransom price (13)

This is a multi-dimensional, super-abundant, over-flowing spiritual happiness that Jesus identified in Himself, and was enjoying so much that He looked at His disciples and prayed, “Father, give them this too. Transfer my joy to them. Share my happiness with them.”

And perhaps even more amazingly, this is a prayer Jesus is still praying for His people. Every Christian’s every smile, joy, and pleasure, is an answer to this prayer. Every Christian who is dejected and depressed is being prayed for in this way by their great High Priest.

As Arthur Pink wrote: “The Savior would not only have His people safe in eternity, but He desires them to be happy here and now.”

This article originally appeared on Christianity.com. For more faith-building resources, visit Christianity.com.