how to prove that you're a Christian, be joyful.

Poor Maude.

Maude knows a lot about how to be a Christian. She goes to church on Sundays and says her prayers at night. She doesn't swear. She'll have a glass of wine on appropriate holidays but never looses her sensibilities. She knows that a proper Christmas tree is to be put up on the first Sunday following Thanksgiving. Not before. Not after. It is to be decorated in tasteful measures of white and gold. None of those abominable football ornaments and cartoon characters.  Red is the proper color for Reformation Sunday. Purple for Lent. An appropriate set of paraments should be garnished in modest silvers and whites with an occasional blue for a Noah or Jonah scene but nothing so gaudy as a rainbow. She is forever baffled why her kids and their families never come to visit. When they finally are in town for a certain holiday, though, she can be overheard picking them apart either because the daughter should have never married that man in the first place or the grandson is forever wrinkling his good pants.

Maude knows a lot about being a Christian. But she is missing one of the most important things that actually reveals one to be a Christian. You can't squeeze an ounce of the joy out of the poor woman. And where joy is lost, so too the primary foundation for Christlike compassion, forgiveness, humility, and so on (hope and joy are interchangeable here).

The words that we translate as “joy,” or "gladness," or "rejoicing" occur dozens of times in the book of Acts’ account of the early church. They punctuate nearly every story and sermon throughout. We have accounts of first century politicians and military commanders who were regularly frustrated that they could torture, mock, and unleash wild animals on the early Christians, but they never could seem to snuff out their palpable sense of joy.

When most people in our culture think of what a Christian is, does joy come to mind? I'm leaning toward no. I try not to hold it against Maude that she has missed the memo on joy. Who can tell of all the neurotic influences who first convinced her that there was a proper way to be a Christian and that it probably wasn’t any fun? But it is worth telling her tale as a parable of warning.  What we most have to look out for as Christians is not immorality, it’s not assimilation into the culture, it’s not getting lax with our Bible study habits. It’s joylessness. All else that could ever reflect anything like the empty tomb will finally have some kind of joy as it’s foundation. 

We have to get this figured out. When people think of Christians, do they think of Saint Francis delighting in sunshine as he names brother fox and sister Chickadee? Do they think of Bonhoeffer winning over the loyalty of his imprisoners with his kind eyes and sincere prayers? Do they think of the uncontrollable laughter of Desmond Tutu even before the fall of Apartheid? Or do they think of Maude? 

You may be thinking, So what, then, if I don’t feel joyful? I can’t force myself to feel a certain way. Does that mean I’m not a Christian?

Luckily, joy is not an emotion to be confused with mirthfulness, and it's not the same as trying to stay  "upbeat" or "positive." In fact, joy can even hold in it a great deal of pain and sorrow.  And ignoring the world’s sorrows for what they are isn’t joy; it’s nihilism. That kind of denial is like saying, "We just won't acknowledge how bad things look because we don't actually believe that they could ever be any better."

Most importantly, you can actually practice joy and get better at it.

For a Christian, even in times of distress, joy is a disposition toward the world that says, In spite of the fight I'm having with my wife, she is fundamentally worth my staying in the fight; In spite of the violence in my neighborhood, my neighbors are fundamentally worth my working to improve it; In spite of the immense pain that happens in this world, this world is a good one, and I won't abandon it. Joy is the disposition to give this world the benefit of the doubt because however prodigal it can go, it is still God's world. This is why the otherworld obsessiveness of modern Christianity is so disturbing, it's exactly opposite the concern of authentic Christianity.  

It's telling that Mother Teresa lived most of her adult life in the depths of depression, and yet, when you look at her life’s work, it’s difficult to deny that she was one of the most joy-filled people ever. Not happy. Joy-filled.

That is, her actions betrayed a deep sense of loyalty to this world and hope that it is worth saving. That it can be saved. She could have easily folded under the weight of her emotional state and the immensity of need in Calcutta, asking, Why care? Why heal? Why go on?

But in defiance of pragmatism, her joy won out. Every bandage, every bathing, every tear was a living testament to the empty tomb. A testament that things do not, in fact, have to be the way that they are. A testament that one day they will not be.

That is the joy that we await on Easter Sunday.