N.T. Wright defines joy as what happens when God does something you've been waiting for Him to do. Joy's the natural response to God's healing and restorative power sweeping through creation. Joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, and the apostle Paul commands Christians to be joyful. We are commanded to celebrate; even at a funeral, Wright says, we are to celebrate the victory of Jesus and creation's hope of restoration and our hope of resurrection. The Christian life is to be a virtue of celebration; we can't control our feelings, but objectively celebrating absent the feelings has a tendency to create the feelings over time. #fakeituntilyoumakeit
While joy does have an emotive component, joy isn't defined by the associated emotions. Rejoicing involves living in a narrative that people around us don't believe to be true, the narrative that Jesus is Lord already; and since that narrative grinds against the aims, hopes, and worldview of a fallen world, there's bound to be conflict. Even in the midst of suffering, we're to be joyful. Suffering is a badge of belonging to the world's true King; when you're on the front lines in this tension between the Now and Not Yet, the powers and principalities are out to get you. Suffering isn't a sign that things are wrong but that we're standing on the right side of history. By aligning with Jesus and suffering for him and his kingdom, we share in his messianic suffering. Jesus tells us not to be afraid when the world hates us; the world hated Jesus, and we're running against the tide proclaiming his name.
Suffering and Rejoicing share a home in the Christian life; this is why Paul can say that he is sorrowful yet rejoicing. When we feel at the end of our ropes and are despairing of life itself, it is in that moment that we are forced to cling to God and rejoice in our future hope. Suffering forms a part of redemption's tapestry, and in Romans 8 we see the whole creation groaning like a woman about to give birth, longing for redemption. The church groans and the Spirit groans; life in this world is marked by groaning, and as we groan with the world, sharing in Jesus' messianic suffering, we become catalysts for the kingdom and springs for the Spirit in a parched world. The world doesn't know what's going on, it's just in the pain and turmoil; the church shares this, but the church knows what's going on. Jesus showed us that the manner of victory over evil and the world is through taking on that world's suffering and suffering through it to the other side. The world is healed through love; not a romantic love but a self-giving, self-sacrificing love that is painful and, at times, lethal.
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