On Joy and Pleasure

...my heart is glad,

and my soul rejoices;

my body also knows full well that You are my God....

You will show me the path of life;

In your Presence is fullness of joy,

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16: 9-11).

 

Yesterday I wrote that pleasure cannot be sustained beyond the activity, and that we (in the natural man) seek to extend the pleasure indefinitely by sustaining the activity (of eating, for example.)  Unfortunately, when we get into drugs, sex, alcohol, and the "highs" of power and child abuse, we become slaves to the activity which destroys our very souls.  We are chained to the bodily pleasures, and our souls cannot extricate ourselves from that slavery to sin.  So we have sex addicts, alcoholics, power addicts, "lovers of disputation," in the words of St. Paul -- those "Greeks" who just love to argue and dispute for the sake of argument-- and so forth.  The "works of the flesh" or of "the man without God" are listed in Galatians 5, among other places in the Bible.

 

Because some people become slaves to the pleasures of the flesh does not mean that pleasure is in itself sinful.  Because Jesus was filled with the Spirit of God, Who saw "that it was good," He took exquisite pleasure in the beauty of the world, the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, and the delight in little children.  He loved the "little ones of God," the "anawim" who came to Him by the hundreds for cure of physical, mental, and emotional disorders and disease.  He loved the fishermen, the adulteress, the tax collectors, and the sinners, the societal outcasts, those not quite up to measure by religious standards, the "unclean," and those without hope in this world:  the bruised reed He shall not break (Is. 42:3).

 

I think it fair to say that Jesus loved life, that He took pleasure in fine wine, in dancing and singing, in the fellowship of friends, in the love of His mother and father -- that He rejected nothing that He and His Father had made, for He was the Alpha and the Omega -- the Source and the End of all that has been made:

 

And in this mountain

The Lord of hosts will make for all people

A feast of choice pieces,

A feast of wine on the lees,

Of fat things full of marrow,

Of well - refined wine on the lees (Is. 25:6).

 

The passage from Isaiah, as well as similar ones in the Book of Revelation, speak of a great feast on the "Day of the Lord."  The fact that Jesus began His public ministry by turning water into wine marks the arrival of that Great Day of Great Pleasures.  On that Day, the Day of Salvation and Redemption, when we put away unclean and defiled things,

 

...He will give the rain for your seed

With which you sow the ground,

And bread of the increase of the earth;

It will be fat and plenteous.

In that day your cattle will feed

In large pastures....

There will be on every mountain

And on every high hill

Rivers and streams of waters....

...the light of the moon

will be as the light of the sun,

And the light of the sun will be sevenfold,

As the light of seven days,

In the day that the Lord binds up the bruise of His people

And heals the stroke of their wound (Is. 30:23-26).

 

The fact that God placed Adam and Eve in a Garden of Great Delight means that He wants to "fill us with pleasures at His right hand forever."  He does not want to remove from us earthly pleasure, but rather, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice (holiness), and all these things will be given to you besides."  To seek first the pleasures is to ensure that they will dissipate and will need even more stimulation to renew them.  Those who begin by taking a little "ecstasy" or drug will need to increase the dose as the pleasure wears thin.  Those who seek joy in the kingdom of God will know ecstasy, joy, and pleasure beyond all understanding.  They will 'get high' at the sight of a lily or a pelican in flight.  They will get drunk on the Spirit of truth and understanding; they will 'laugh at the days to come,' without worry or anxiety. 

 

The pleasures in the kingdom of God satisfy the soul as well as the body.  When John's disciples came to ask Jesus if He was the One who was to come, He answered with the words of Isaiah: Tell John that the eyes of the blind are opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.  The lame leap for joy, and the tongue of the dumb sings...for waters burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.  The parched ground has become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water....(Is. 35).  [I have continued to quote the passage which Jesus began in His response.]  I think it safe to say that the pleasures beyond the grave will be far beyond anything we can imagine on earth. 

 

My father, a quiet man who had little to say in the flesh, had a near-death experience after a triple by-pass, and spoke to us 'from heaven' during that experience.  He was full of laughter and joy as he told us of a great feast, a table laden with food 'better than anything he had eaten on earth."  He described fields of beautiful flowers and friends.  When he returned to us after that experience, he was never again afraid of death and even seemed depressed for awhile that he had not gone on from this life.  But peace marked the final years he remained with us, and his death was the most peaceful I have ever known. 

Those who seek pleasure only will never know the kind of joy that Jesus gives us:  In the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (Jn. 17:33.....these things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full (Jn. 15:11). 

Pleasure is one thing, but it cannot be sought for itself, or it will disappear.  Joy remains even in tribulation, for it is not dependent on circumstances, but only on the abiding Presence of Jesus Christ in us.  And it includes pleasures at His right hand forever.