In the gospel of John, the idea that Jesus’s “time has not yet come” repeats a few times. It’s John (and Jesus’s) way of saying the end hasn’t arrived yet: He went to Jerusalem late for Sukkot because it wasn’t yet time, and people couldn’t arrest him when they wished because it wasn’t yet time. When it was time, of course, he’d be arrested and crucified. But not yet.
There’s one other instance of this turn of phrase: When Jesus was at a wedding in Cana, and his mom came to him to tell him they were out of wine. His response?
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When I point this out to people, they respond one of two ways. Most laugh in surprise: Jesus made a joke! How about that. We always suspected he had a sense of humor. Now we have evidence.
The others respond, “Well, I don’t know about that.” Some because they’ve not heard this interpretation before, and would like to think they’re more knowledgeable of the bible, and of Jesus, than that. But more of them do so because their image of Jesus looks nothing at all like that—of a man enjoying himself at a party, and of cracking wise when his mother tells him about the wine shortage. To them, Jesus—in the gospels, anyway—is an earnestly serious prophet who has a mission to fulfill, and doesn’t have time for anything that’s not serious business. Like, say, a wedding feast.
These would be the same folks who have redefined the spiritual fruit of joy so it doesn’t actually mean joy anymore: “Joy,” they argue, “can’t be an emotion; can’t refer to happiness; emotions are far too temporary, far too based on circumstances. A true fruit of the Spirit should be something more permanent, like the ability to be content under all circumstances.” They take James’s instructions to turn troubles into joy, as a way to develop patience, and deduce from this that they’re related—they’re even one and the same. Joy is interpreted as being content under all circumstances. Patience, so it doesn’t share the definition and expose the subterfuge, is redefined by the literal translation of makro-thymía, “long-suffering”: You’re not necessarily content, but you just put up with things in the hope they’ll get better. Joy becomes patience, and patience becomes bottled-up impatience.
Why redefine joy? Because you lack it. Why put aside the idea that Jesus has a sense of humor? Because our sense of humor is damaged. The natural reaction of laughing when we encounter the silly, the ridiculous, or the unexpected (whether cleverly or shockingly presented), has been replaced with the unnatural reaction of being irritated by it. And if we’re to be like Jesus, and we’re not like him, it’s much easier to deny we have a flaw, defend our flaws by projecting them upon Jesus, and claim we are like him. If you never laugh, your Jesus never laughs. If you never experience joy, you must redefine joy until it becomes something you experience all the time. Like patience. The overly serious always have to be patient. Particularly with all the jokers in the world.
If joy is patience, what does this make the joy of the Lord? What did it mean when the angels announced good news of great joy for all people? When Jesus told his students their grief would turn into joy, how is this substantially different? When the master in Jesus’s parable of talents says “Enter into the joy of your lord,” is this a good thing? When there’s joy in heaven over a repentant sinner, what sort of celebration is this?
God wants us to be happy. God wants us to laugh. God laughs. Not just in derision, but in joy, for he wants our sorrow turned to laughter, and our joy to be complete. And if we can’t experience some of it in the Kingdom now, for whatever reason, it’s a flaw he wants to fix. The fruit of the Spirit is joy, not solemnity. Rejoice.