The Road Devotional | Lent 2024

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.  For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

We hear in today’s reading that Jesus was “full of Joy” and that flowed outwards into prayer. For many of us we have been shared a vision of Christianity that seemingly rejects emotions like joy in favor for spiritual maturity. However, emotions like Joy are in fact not opposite to spiritual maturity but fruit of that maturity. Our lives can feel empty of joy, and sometimes our prayer life is more of a rote practice than an outpouring of joy and happiness.

Q. How can you lean more into joy in your faith life? In what ways do you keep yourself from experiencing joy?

Jesus tells us that God the Father and he are essentially one, that the one the prophets waited for was there right in front of the disciples. Even in the midst of doing ministry together... even while encountering miracle after miracle... even after hearing Jesus’ teachings... the disciples found it difficult at times to reconcile their understanding of the Messiah to the Messiah that was there in their midst.

Q. How does knowing that God is and always has been like Jesus change how you think about God the Father? How does it fit with the revelation of God in the Old Testament?

God, you know my heart and you know that it can be difficult at times to see you at work in my life and in the lives of those around me. Help me see. Help me ground myself in your presence that I might have joy in abundance, and that my faith, and my prayers, and my beliefs might flow from a place of Your Joy, of laughter and imagination, of curiosity and excitement. Help me be an instrument of your joy in others that they might come to see You in a new way.
Amen.