A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus said to his disciples, I remind you this is a continuation of that marvelous splendid statement of our blessed lord at the last supper as recorded by Saint John. So our blessed lord continues speaking to his disciples. As the father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live on in my love.
You will live in my love if you keep my commandments. Even as I have kept my father's commandments and as I live in his love. All this, I tell you, that my joy may be yours and your joy may be complete. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
There's a striking sentence in this statement of our blessed lord where he says, in all this I tell you that my joy may be yours and that your joy may be complete. Now when you think very quickly over our blessed Lord's life, where do you find expressions of joy? It's not recorded in any text we have that our blessed lord even smiled, much less laughed. And today, there's scarcely a picture or a snapshot of anyone taken without the person having a smile. We have to be smiling.
Which is a very interesting thing because if you go back a few hundred years to some of the great master artists, it was just the reverse. But let us go back to this text. Our Lord says that I want your joy to be as full as my joy. Now when you look at Christ's life and try to find the joy in his life, what do you find? See, this you know where we're heading.
We're heading back into that same idea of peace. When Christ says, I give you peace, and all the rest of it, he talked a lot about peace, but he talked about his peace. And we throw the word peace around. And there's a third word I want to bring in here, and that is this word love. I have no idea what love means in any given context.
The Oxford unabridged Oxford and you can verify this in any decent library. You take the I say the unabridged Oxford dictionary has 13 columns of the meaning of the English word love. Now any remember, words are signs, arbitrary oral signs for the purpose of communication. And any sign that can has 13 columns of meanings, you know what you can throw do with that sign. So I have no idea.
After all, our blessed lord often tells us what he means by love. Today's text, he says, keep my commandments. Well, that's pretty concrete. See, it anybody can become poetic, romantic, or anything else you wish would like to to say with the word love. Here, Christ boils it down, keep my commandments.
That is nitty gritty stuff. Very nitty gritty to keep the commandments. That's no fun. And as far as in in many years, you'll say, where is the joy in keeping the 10 commandments? Where is the joy in trying to lead a religious life?
All it seems to be is carrying a cross and falling under it and getting blistered and shattered and and dragged down. This isn't news to anybody. It's simply the it's simply another version of the book of Job. As we often say, if that if if God treats his friends that way, who needs enemies? This is commonplace.
So what is our lord talking about? Is he talking nonsense or what? When he says that your joy may be filled as my joy has been filled. What is Christ talking about? We are so used to just reading these things that it just comes and goes, and we we have a certain reaction of comfort from it.
But when we start asking ourselves, what's the meaning behind this? What can I how can I put this into concrete terms? What does it mean in life? Then we're up the tree. And maybe we don't like to do it because we may find something that we don't like to find.
You know, one way of eliminating a problem is not to admit there is a problem. We call it sweeping under the carpet. So what does our Lord mean when he says that your joy may be full? I all I can the best I can do is to point to some examples. And the examples are really dreadful in many ways.
Because the first the first name that came to my mind when I said that was Thomas More. And here's Thomas More. He you said, Christ says to him, keep my commandments that your joy may be full. Where is Thomas Moore as I'm thinking of him now? He's up there in the tower.
He has seen the car he has seen the charterhouse monks being led out to to to awful deaths. As awful as the ingenuity of human cruelty can invent, he saw them march out one by one. He doesn't know when his turn is coming, that your joy may be fill fulfilled. Then he sees John Fisher go. He sees him walk out.
I'm not drawing upon my imagination. I I'm drawing upon the the story of of Thomas Moore by his son-in-law. Roper. So Thomas Moore's joy was was full up there in the tower watching these people being led out to execution, not knowing when his time was coming. It might come in the next minute, it might come that night, it might come the next morning.
When he has his family coming, begging him to have some common sense and to get off this kick he has of being different from the whole hierarchy of the English church so that he has to even turn his back in a way upon his nearest and dearest, all but his favorite daughter, Margaret. Is that joy? Well, I leave it to you. Look at the crucifix. Was Christ's joy fulfilled on the crucifix in his passion and death?
Look at his life. We know that he went to to occasions of celebration. We know that. We know that he had dinner with his friends. I don't think it's fair to think of our blessed lord as a sourpuss, as a killjoy at all.
But all I say is it's not recorded in one single instance that our Lord even smiled, much less laughed. And today, unless you've got a smile on your face, well of course, you know, we know you've got one foot in the grave. See, to be a Christian means to be totally different from the world. You know, why do I say that? Christ said it.
That's not my word at all. And the more the world can say, I recognize you. I like you. You're one of us, the more you can be darn sure you are removed from Jesus Christ. That's for sure.
Because when the world loves you, you know you've moved in the wrong direction. Because Christ said this, that the world will hate you. Well, the contrary of that proposition is when it loves you, you're on the wrong track. And so when we talk about peace of Jesus Christ or the peace that he promises us, when we talk about his joy, and that's the only kind he talked about, When we talk about his love, and in most instances our blessed lord told us what he means by that word, whether it's in Greek or whatever, He go he generally puts in an afterphrase. We are dealing with very serious topics.
Believe me, folks. Very serious. And we can't bring the ordinary conception of the world to them. If we do, we are wrong. We are totally wrong, not just halfway wrong, we're totally wrong.
Because our blessed Lord said, the peace I give you, I give you not as the world gives you. He's oh, wait. There's no use going. He's this is commonplace except we don't recognize it, We don't realize it. We don't see that this is the truth and face up to the consequences.
What are the consequences? Two, that the world will hate you, but that god will love you, and that you will be truly joyful. In the name of the father and of the son and holy spirit. Amen.