Joy Is Like The Rain
Biblical Studies
More Alive Than Ever
Signs In The Miracles Of John's Gospel
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
-- Keats
There is an old hymn that states simply that "joy is like the rain." Like rain, joy is a soft mist that can envelop our being and soak our spirits. Like rain, joy can be like a thunderstorm that cools the hot, humid air of anger, anxiety, and stress. How well I remember the summer of 1954 before my first year in the seminary. In order to make some money for school I worked as a groundskeeper and custodian for the Lutheran Social Services office center in Minneapolis. It turned into a hot, dry, dusty summer. A severe drought occurred for several weeks. Although I didn't have to do much mowing, I pulled around hoses and sprinklers trying desperately to keep the grass and gardens green. Late one afternoon it happened. Dark clouds rolled in and the distant roll of thunder became a prelude to the flashing strikes of lightning and gigantic booms of thunder. The rains came in torrents licking up the dust and dirt in the gutters. It rained long and hard followed by a sudden cooling of the air and a spectacular rainbow. Joy indeed is like the rain. It can refresh our spirits and give us new growth.
In the Gospel of John we look upon the first sign and miracle of Jesus. It occurs at a wedding feast in the little village of Cana, about six miles northeast of Nazareth. Jesus grew up in this rolling hill country and how often he must have walked down through the hills some fifteen miles to the beautiful Sea of Galilee. Cana was the hometown of the disciple Nathanael. One day Philip sought him out and said, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:45-46). These little villages were so familiar and commonplace to the inhabitants that a rivalry and disdain must have existed between them. Could anything of significance happen in these places that would affect the course of our lives today? We affirm that something did happen. We affirm that the joy that came into this wedding long ago can permeate our lives today.
For some reason, Jesus and his disciples were invited to this wedding and Mary, the mother of Jesus, had much to do with the activities. Some believe that this was the wedding of the disciple John, which would account for such a detailed description of the accompanying miracle. A wedding in those days was a great celebration that lasted for days. It was no little thirty-minute happening. The ceremony itself occurred in the evening, followed by a procession to the house of the groom that was like a joyous parade. For a period of a week the bride and groom were treated like a king and queen.1 Since wedding festivities usually lasted a long time, things moved at a leisurely pace. Many guests arrived, including Jesus and his entourage. In the midst of the feasting and joy there occurred a problem that must have been an embarrassing and interrupting concern casting a shadow upon the joy of the occasion. The wedding feast ran out of wine, the very symbol of joy. Is it not true today that the problems, embarrassments, and the stresses of life can take away our joy?
For a few years, in the early '70s, I served an inner-city church in Minneapolis close to the downtown area. We were surrounded by slum areas and many of our members were poor. Although the black people of Minneapolis were only four percent of the population, they organized and revolted against their discrimination and poverty. Windows of many public buildings were either broken or covered with boards. Burning tires in the streets blocked traffic. We changed the locks of our church building every three months. Through all this turmoil, I have a great remembrance of the weddings at which I officiated. Although many families were poor, they knew how to celebrate and how to be joyful. It was a Saturday afternoon and I paced a bit in the little room off the chancel area, a place reserved for the pastors to robe and say their prayers before any kind of worship service. Only thirty minutes remained until yet another wedding service. Suddenly the groom came into the room. I could tell something was wrong because he was still dressed in his jeans. "Pastor," he said, "my tuxedo doesn't fit!"
"What do you mean it doesn't fit, didn't you try it on?"
"Well, pastor, don't worry. I rented it over here at a place on Lake Street. I'll be right back."
Only 25 minutes remained until the wedding was to begin. To make a long story short, the groom was back in record time. I even helped him dress and tied his shoelaces. Although the ceremony started twenty minutes late, the wedding party and attending guests were full of joy, especially the wedding party, because the groom was properly dressed.
At the wedding feast in Cana an embarrassing moment was turned into joy. When they ran out of wine, Mary who was very much involved in the arrangements, came to Jesus. At first glance Jesus seems to treat her rather harshly, saying, "Woman, what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come." But the word for woman here in the original Greek is a term of endearment and was the very word Jesus used for his own mother when she stood at the foot of the cross. Mary knew her son and knew that he would do the right thing at the right time. When we travel through joyless valleys, we have in Jesus one who knows our needs even before we express them, and even when we don't know how to express our deepest needs, we can let go -- knowing that Jesus will do the right thing at the right time.
Our attention now is focused upon a detail that is of great significance to the meaning of the miracle and sign that is to follow. Such details breathe with the conviction of an eyewitness account. Six stone jars were standing outside for the Jewish rites of purification. The water in these jars was used for washing dusty feet and dirty hands in a ceremonial fashion in order to be properly cleansed for the wedding feast. We are told that each jar could hold from twenty to thirty gallons of water. Jesus commands the servants to fill the jars and the author emphasizes that these jars were filled to the brim, as if to let the reader know that there was nothing else but water in the jars. When the water was drawn out and taken to the chief steward he gasps in surprise, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now."
At first glance, Jesus seems like a complete spendthrift and has made up to 180 gallons of wine. No wedding feast could have used it up! Why so wasteful? There is a sense in which God seems like a spendthrift. Even when he created the universe he created it so vast and immense that it can only be measured in terms of distances according to light years, the distance light travels in a year going 186,000 plus miles a second. But in this eyewitness account there is every indication that no wine was wasted. The water only became wine in the process of being drawn out.
What happened was that the embarrassment and stress of having no wine was replaced by a complete kind of joy that could not be used up. God shows us this joy through this Jesus who radiated such joyfulness of spirit that it attracted the crowds. Even little children wanted to be near him. God created us to be joyful. It is a deep-seated quality of life that is meant to permeate our being enabling us to be more alive than ever.
Something else here should capture our attention. Jesus used the water that was for the purpose of cleansing that which was unclean. It is as if Jesus says that he will replace this water of cleansing with something that is sparkling, fresh, and new. You can almost hear Jesus say at this point, as he would say to the woman at Jacob's well: "Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (John 4:14). The spotlight here is upon Jesus. It is as if he is teaching us as we look back upon him that through his life, death, and resurrection he is constantly replacing the old water and methods of cleansing. Through him we are so cleansed, forgiven, loved, and accepted that his great gifts of joy and peace, through his Spirit, permeate our being.
Even so we can be cast down in our spirits and emotions. Negative thoughts along with such things as tension, stress, worry, idleness, boredom, frustration, suppressed rage, insufficient sleep, overeating, poorly balanced diet, smoking, excessive drinking, inadequate exercise, stale air, or any other of the abuses encountered by the body, mind, and spirit can keep us from being fully alive. Joyfulness of spirit is a gift of God through Jesus that can be a contagious force in our lives. It can be caught like the common cold. The very word catch can be an acrostic suggesting some of the ways in which joy can permeate our lives.
1. One can choose to be joyful. Walt Kallestad is the Senior Pastor of the Community Church of Joy located in Glendale, a part of the Phoenix area. When Kallestad came here, he came to a congregation of less than 300 people and whenever he tried to make any changes to enliven the worship and outreach of the congregation, he was met with great resistance. Nobody was going to change them. Several times I have heard him speak of how this spirit of the people produced anger, resentment, and frustration. After a long wrestling period in prayer he decided that no matter what he was going to love his people as unconditionally as possible and he was going to choose to be joyful. If he awakened depressed and discouraged he would say to himself as he drove to his office, "I choose to be joyful today." From my perspective, this joyfulness became a contagious force and today the Community Church of Joy is one of the fastest growing churches in America.
2. Act joyful. Clinical psychologists have stated that you can act your way into a new way of feeling, as well as feel your way into a new way of acting. Perhaps it sounds almost hypocritical to pretend to be joyful when you are not. In a delightful publication called The Joyful Noiseletter was the story of a medical doctor who stressed the importance of belly laughing. He said that every day he would stand in front of a mirror and do two or three belly laughs out loud even though he didn't feel like it. The result was that often this deliberate attempt to laugh out loud would produce genuine laughter and he would feel relaxed and peaceful inside.2 One day I tried it and at first felt self-conscious and uncomfortable but soon the belly laughs were real and I felt good.
3. Thank your way into joy. As the old song goes, "count your many blessings, name them one by one." I have found it to be helpful to take a piece of paper and write down the things for which I was thankful, discovering that each item led to many more. It has been helpful also to seek out some people and thank them for something they have done. As a pastor in Cedar Falls, Iowa, I was having a dreadful day full of stress and busyness. After lunch I was rushing to a meeting of pastors in the area. Suddenly behind me were the flashing lights of a police car and I just knew that I had been speeding. When the officer came to the window of my car something came over me and I quickly said, "I am a pastor of that church at 14th and Main and I need to make a hospital call." He smiled at me and said, "I'll be happy to help you get there quickly." With lights flashing and siren wailing he guided me through the traffic to the hospital. Needless to say, I was embarrassed and ran into the hospital and made calls on two of our members. Since these members were also close friends, I thanked them for their friendship and what they meant to me. Something strange happened. I no longer felt rushed and harried. I left the hospital joyful.
4. Cultivate a joyful spirit. Listen to joyful music. Think joyful thoughts. Norman Cousins, the longtime editor of the Saturday Review in the last century wrote about a serious illness that came upon him in 1964. In August of that year he flew home from a trip abroad with a slight fever. The fatigue and lifelessness that he felt was accompanied by a general feeling of achiness that rapidly deepened. Within a week it became difficult to move his neck, arms, hands, fingers, and legs. After being bombarded with tests there was no agreement on a precise diagnosis. There was, however, a consensus that he was suffering from a serious collagen illness -- a disease of the connective tissue. In a sense, as he put it, he was becoming unstuck. "I had considerable difficulty in moving my body and in turning over in bed. Nodules appeared on my body, gravel-like substances under the skin, indicating the systematic nature of the disease. At the low point of my illness my jaws were almost locked." His was a crippling and supposedly irreversible disease with only one chance in 500 for any kind of improvement. Norman Cousins, in close connection with his personal physician, talked about the importance of positive, joyful thoughts in any kind of a healing process. They talked about the power of the human mind to regenerate and recreate even when the situation appeared hopeless. Recognizing the great willpower inside of Norman Cousins, his doctor allowed him to move out of the hospital to begin a program of exercising affirmative emotions as a factor in enhancing body chemistry. Norman Cousins writes in his best-selling little book, Anatomy of An Illness: "It was easy enough to hope and love and have faith, but what about laughter? Nothing is less funny than being flat on your back with all the bones in your spine and joints hurting. A systematic program was indicated. A good place to begin, I thought, was with amusing movies. Allen Funt, producer of the spoofing television program, Candid Camera, sent films of some of his CC classics, along with a motion-picture projector. The nurse was instructed in its use. We were even able to get our hands on some old Marx Brothers films. We pulled down the blinds and turned on the machine. It worked. I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep. When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion-picture projector again, and, not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free sleep interval. Sometimes the nurse would read to me out of a trove of humor books." In this process of cultivating joy and positive emotions, healing c me to Norman Cousins and he was able to return to being editor of the Saturday Review for many years.3
Such a story reminds us that laughter relaxes the inward spirit. It opens the heart to the Spirit's great gift of joy. Yes, this joy is a channel of health, healing, and a new kind of wholeness that makes us more alive than ever. The book of Proverbs declares, "A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22).
5. Hold on to joyfulness. Make it a daily habit. Let the spirit of Jesus into your life. In the final analysis, if our joy is only self-induced it will not last. Only through the magnificent power of the living presence of Jesus in our hearts and minds can our joy be real and lasting. Think about it. The one who brought joy to a wedding feast in a tiny village turned an embarrassing predicament in a home into something refreshingly new. This Jesus, now alive forever, wants to do the same for you and me. His was, and is, a contagious life force of joy. On the night before Jesus died, he met with his disciples in that upper room in Jerusalem. With death and foreboding in the air, Jesus taught many things to his frightened and disturbed disciples. Finally he said to them and to us, "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11).
Yes, joy is like the rain. It softens the hard ground of suffering struggles and licks up the dust of discouragement and anxiety. Joy is like a soft mist softening the heart and preparing us for new growth and new life.
Reflection And Discussion
Thought Questions
1.
Why do you suppose Joseph is not mentioned as one of the guests?
2.
Why were the stone jars filled "to the brim" in this account?
3.
Why do you think Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding feast?
4.
In what ways is joy like the rain for you?
Agree Or Disagree
�
Jesus was very wasteful in making so much wine.
�
Miracles and signs are needed for our faith to grow.
Endnotes
1.�William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Vol. 1 (Louisville/ London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, 2001), pp. 111-123.
2.�The Joyful Noiseletter, award-winning newsletter of The Fellowship of Merry Christians, Portage, Michigan.
3.�Norman Cousins, Anatomy Of An Illness (New York/ London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979), pp. 22-54.
After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
-- Keats
There is an old hymn that states simply that "joy is like the rain." Like rain, joy is a soft mist that can envelop our being and soak our spirits. Like rain, joy can be like a thunderstorm that cools the hot, humid air of anger, anxiety, and stress. How well I remember the summer of 1954 before my first year in the seminary. In order to make some money for school I worked as a groundskeeper and custodian for the Lutheran Social Services office center in Minneapolis. It turned into a hot, dry, dusty summer. A severe drought occurred for several weeks. Although I didn't have to do much mowing, I pulled around hoses and sprinklers trying desperately to keep the grass and gardens green. Late one afternoon it happened. Dark clouds rolled in and the distant roll of thunder became a prelude to the flashing strikes of lightning and gigantic booms of thunder. The rains came in torrents licking up the dust and dirt in the gutters. It rained long and hard followed by a sudden cooling of the air and a spectacular rainbow. Joy indeed is like the rain. It can refresh our spirits and give us new growth.
In the Gospel of John we look upon the first sign and miracle of Jesus. It occurs at a wedding feast in the little village of Cana, about six miles northeast of Nazareth. Jesus grew up in this rolling hill country and how often he must have walked down through the hills some fifteen miles to the beautiful Sea of Galilee. Cana was the hometown of the disciple Nathanael. One day Philip sought him out and said, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:45-46). These little villages were so familiar and commonplace to the inhabitants that a rivalry and disdain must have existed between them. Could anything of significance happen in these places that would affect the course of our lives today? We affirm that something did happen. We affirm that the joy that came into this wedding long ago can permeate our lives today.
For some reason, Jesus and his disciples were invited to this wedding and Mary, the mother of Jesus, had much to do with the activities. Some believe that this was the wedding of the disciple John, which would account for such a detailed description of the accompanying miracle. A wedding in those days was a great celebration that lasted for days. It was no little thirty-minute happening. The ceremony itself occurred in the evening, followed by a procession to the house of the groom that was like a joyous parade. For a period of a week the bride and groom were treated like a king and queen.1 Since wedding festivities usually lasted a long time, things moved at a leisurely pace. Many guests arrived, including Jesus and his entourage. In the midst of the feasting and joy there occurred a problem that must have been an embarrassing and interrupting concern casting a shadow upon the joy of the occasion. The wedding feast ran out of wine, the very symbol of joy. Is it not true today that the problems, embarrassments, and the stresses of life can take away our joy?
For a few years, in the early '70s, I served an inner-city church in Minneapolis close to the downtown area. We were surrounded by slum areas and many of our members were poor. Although the black people of Minneapolis were only four percent of the population, they organized and revolted against their discrimination and poverty. Windows of many public buildings were either broken or covered with boards. Burning tires in the streets blocked traffic. We changed the locks of our church building every three months. Through all this turmoil, I have a great remembrance of the weddings at which I officiated. Although many families were poor, they knew how to celebrate and how to be joyful. It was a Saturday afternoon and I paced a bit in the little room off the chancel area, a place reserved for the pastors to robe and say their prayers before any kind of worship service. Only thirty minutes remained until yet another wedding service. Suddenly the groom came into the room. I could tell something was wrong because he was still dressed in his jeans. "Pastor," he said, "my tuxedo doesn't fit!"
"What do you mean it doesn't fit, didn't you try it on?"
"Well, pastor, don't worry. I rented it over here at a place on Lake Street. I'll be right back."
Only 25 minutes remained until the wedding was to begin. To make a long story short, the groom was back in record time. I even helped him dress and tied his shoelaces. Although the ceremony started twenty minutes late, the wedding party and attending guests were full of joy, especially the wedding party, because the groom was properly dressed.
At the wedding feast in Cana an embarrassing moment was turned into joy. When they ran out of wine, Mary who was very much involved in the arrangements, came to Jesus. At first glance Jesus seems to treat her rather harshly, saying, "Woman, what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come." But the word for woman here in the original Greek is a term of endearment and was the very word Jesus used for his own mother when she stood at the foot of the cross. Mary knew her son and knew that he would do the right thing at the right time. When we travel through joyless valleys, we have in Jesus one who knows our needs even before we express them, and even when we don't know how to express our deepest needs, we can let go -- knowing that Jesus will do the right thing at the right time.
Our attention now is focused upon a detail that is of great significance to the meaning of the miracle and sign that is to follow. Such details breathe with the conviction of an eyewitness account. Six stone jars were standing outside for the Jewish rites of purification. The water in these jars was used for washing dusty feet and dirty hands in a ceremonial fashion in order to be properly cleansed for the wedding feast. We are told that each jar could hold from twenty to thirty gallons of water. Jesus commands the servants to fill the jars and the author emphasizes that these jars were filled to the brim, as if to let the reader know that there was nothing else but water in the jars. When the water was drawn out and taken to the chief steward he gasps in surprise, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now."
At first glance, Jesus seems like a complete spendthrift and has made up to 180 gallons of wine. No wedding feast could have used it up! Why so wasteful? There is a sense in which God seems like a spendthrift. Even when he created the universe he created it so vast and immense that it can only be measured in terms of distances according to light years, the distance light travels in a year going 186,000 plus miles a second. But in this eyewitness account there is every indication that no wine was wasted. The water only became wine in the process of being drawn out.
What happened was that the embarrassment and stress of having no wine was replaced by a complete kind of joy that could not be used up. God shows us this joy through this Jesus who radiated such joyfulness of spirit that it attracted the crowds. Even little children wanted to be near him. God created us to be joyful. It is a deep-seated quality of life that is meant to permeate our being enabling us to be more alive than ever.
Something else here should capture our attention. Jesus used the water that was for the purpose of cleansing that which was unclean. It is as if Jesus says that he will replace this water of cleansing with something that is sparkling, fresh, and new. You can almost hear Jesus say at this point, as he would say to the woman at Jacob's well: "Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (John 4:14). The spotlight here is upon Jesus. It is as if he is teaching us as we look back upon him that through his life, death, and resurrection he is constantly replacing the old water and methods of cleansing. Through him we are so cleansed, forgiven, loved, and accepted that his great gifts of joy and peace, through his Spirit, permeate our being.
Even so we can be cast down in our spirits and emotions. Negative thoughts along with such things as tension, stress, worry, idleness, boredom, frustration, suppressed rage, insufficient sleep, overeating, poorly balanced diet, smoking, excessive drinking, inadequate exercise, stale air, or any other of the abuses encountered by the body, mind, and spirit can keep us from being fully alive. Joyfulness of spirit is a gift of God through Jesus that can be a contagious force in our lives. It can be caught like the common cold. The very word catch can be an acrostic suggesting some of the ways in which joy can permeate our lives.
1. One can choose to be joyful. Walt Kallestad is the Senior Pastor of the Community Church of Joy located in Glendale, a part of the Phoenix area. When Kallestad came here, he came to a congregation of less than 300 people and whenever he tried to make any changes to enliven the worship and outreach of the congregation, he was met with great resistance. Nobody was going to change them. Several times I have heard him speak of how this spirit of the people produced anger, resentment, and frustration. After a long wrestling period in prayer he decided that no matter what he was going to love his people as unconditionally as possible and he was going to choose to be joyful. If he awakened depressed and discouraged he would say to himself as he drove to his office, "I choose to be joyful today." From my perspective, this joyfulness became a contagious force and today the Community Church of Joy is one of the fastest growing churches in America.
2. Act joyful. Clinical psychologists have stated that you can act your way into a new way of feeling, as well as feel your way into a new way of acting. Perhaps it sounds almost hypocritical to pretend to be joyful when you are not. In a delightful publication called The Joyful Noiseletter was the story of a medical doctor who stressed the importance of belly laughing. He said that every day he would stand in front of a mirror and do two or three belly laughs out loud even though he didn't feel like it. The result was that often this deliberate attempt to laugh out loud would produce genuine laughter and he would feel relaxed and peaceful inside.2 One day I tried it and at first felt self-conscious and uncomfortable but soon the belly laughs were real and I felt good.
3. Thank your way into joy. As the old song goes, "count your many blessings, name them one by one." I have found it to be helpful to take a piece of paper and write down the things for which I was thankful, discovering that each item led to many more. It has been helpful also to seek out some people and thank them for something they have done. As a pastor in Cedar Falls, Iowa, I was having a dreadful day full of stress and busyness. After lunch I was rushing to a meeting of pastors in the area. Suddenly behind me were the flashing lights of a police car and I just knew that I had been speeding. When the officer came to the window of my car something came over me and I quickly said, "I am a pastor of that church at 14th and Main and I need to make a hospital call." He smiled at me and said, "I'll be happy to help you get there quickly." With lights flashing and siren wailing he guided me through the traffic to the hospital. Needless to say, I was embarrassed and ran into the hospital and made calls on two of our members. Since these members were also close friends, I thanked them for their friendship and what they meant to me. Something strange happened. I no longer felt rushed and harried. I left the hospital joyful.
4. Cultivate a joyful spirit. Listen to joyful music. Think joyful thoughts. Norman Cousins, the longtime editor of the Saturday Review in the last century wrote about a serious illness that came upon him in 1964. In August of that year he flew home from a trip abroad with a slight fever. The fatigue and lifelessness that he felt was accompanied by a general feeling of achiness that rapidly deepened. Within a week it became difficult to move his neck, arms, hands, fingers, and legs. After being bombarded with tests there was no agreement on a precise diagnosis. There was, however, a consensus that he was suffering from a serious collagen illness -- a disease of the connective tissue. In a sense, as he put it, he was becoming unstuck. "I had considerable difficulty in moving my body and in turning over in bed. Nodules appeared on my body, gravel-like substances under the skin, indicating the systematic nature of the disease. At the low point of my illness my jaws were almost locked." His was a crippling and supposedly irreversible disease with only one chance in 500 for any kind of improvement. Norman Cousins, in close connection with his personal physician, talked about the importance of positive, joyful thoughts in any kind of a healing process. They talked about the power of the human mind to regenerate and recreate even when the situation appeared hopeless. Recognizing the great willpower inside of Norman Cousins, his doctor allowed him to move out of the hospital to begin a program of exercising affirmative emotions as a factor in enhancing body chemistry. Norman Cousins writes in his best-selling little book, Anatomy of An Illness: "It was easy enough to hope and love and have faith, but what about laughter? Nothing is less funny than being flat on your back with all the bones in your spine and joints hurting. A systematic program was indicated. A good place to begin, I thought, was with amusing movies. Allen Funt, producer of the spoofing television program, Candid Camera, sent films of some of his CC classics, along with a motion-picture projector. The nurse was instructed in its use. We were even able to get our hands on some old Marx Brothers films. We pulled down the blinds and turned on the machine. It worked. I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep. When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion-picture projector again, and, not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free sleep interval. Sometimes the nurse would read to me out of a trove of humor books." In this process of cultivating joy and positive emotions, healing c me to Norman Cousins and he was able to return to being editor of the Saturday Review for many years.3
Such a story reminds us that laughter relaxes the inward spirit. It opens the heart to the Spirit's great gift of joy. Yes, this joy is a channel of health, healing, and a new kind of wholeness that makes us more alive than ever. The book of Proverbs declares, "A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22).
5. Hold on to joyfulness. Make it a daily habit. Let the spirit of Jesus into your life. In the final analysis, if our joy is only self-induced it will not last. Only through the magnificent power of the living presence of Jesus in our hearts and minds can our joy be real and lasting. Think about it. The one who brought joy to a wedding feast in a tiny village turned an embarrassing predicament in a home into something refreshingly new. This Jesus, now alive forever, wants to do the same for you and me. His was, and is, a contagious life force of joy. On the night before Jesus died, he met with his disciples in that upper room in Jerusalem. With death and foreboding in the air, Jesus taught many things to his frightened and disturbed disciples. Finally he said to them and to us, "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11).
Yes, joy is like the rain. It softens the hard ground of suffering struggles and licks up the dust of discouragement and anxiety. Joy is like a soft mist softening the heart and preparing us for new growth and new life.
Reflection And Discussion
Thought Questions
1.
Why do you suppose Joseph is not mentioned as one of the guests?
2.
Why were the stone jars filled "to the brim" in this account?
3.
Why do you think Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding feast?
4.
In what ways is joy like the rain for you?
Agree Or Disagree
�
Jesus was very wasteful in making so much wine.
�
Miracles and signs are needed for our faith to grow.
Endnotes
1.�William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Vol. 1 (Louisville/ London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, 2001), pp. 111-123.
2.�The Joyful Noiseletter, award-winning newsletter of The Fellowship of Merry Christians, Portage, Michigan.
3.�Norman Cousins, Anatomy Of An Illness (New York/ London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979), pp. 22-54.
