Every now and again, in a moment of vision, or hope, or faith, or clarity, you see something great in the struggling and challenging circumstances you find yourself in. Be you a minister in the rural eastern Free State like me, or a farmer, or a businessman, a businesswoman, or wherever you are. The talk of the town is quite depressing right now. Numbers are down, finances are down and optimism is down. And here in this part of the world the change of season has brought with it all kinds of illness and ailment. I am having one of these ‘great’ moments that defy logic and explanation! For some time now I have not been sure how to lead the church through these difficult times. Most everything I know, and have tried, has failed. Then the other day I prayed the prayer of ‘relinquishment’; to surrender, and to let go to God all the things that seem beyond me. To relinquish, NOT to give up, but to rather say, “I can’t do this anymore, can you do it, God?” Right now, in the churches I serve in Bethlehem, Bohlokong, Clarens, Senekal, Fouriesburg, Kestell, Paul Roux and Lindley, and in neighbouring Ficksburg and Marqaurd – amidst great financial struggle, dwindling numbers, and races still separated by years of division, I ‘saw’ and ‘experienced’ who we really are as a church, and what we can become together. What for months has looked bleak, and has made me feel despondent, suddenly looks brighter. And it’s not because I am on top of the world, and all hyped up and optimistic. Actually, to the contrary. It’s like an invisible corner is turned. Suddenly things that have been stuck are becoming unstuck, plans that just seemed not to get off the ground, are getting off the ground. People are opening themselves, and risking themselves. I don’t want to think about it too much, or analyze it too much. Rather just enjoy it, and let it have a course and an energy of its own. It feels like the rain that fell into a ravine and filled up everything in its path until it ran into a huge desert. Try as it might it could not cross the desert, and began to dry up. Eventually it let the wind carry its water into the clouds, and blew across the desert, and carried on watering the earth, bringing life and energy where previously there had been none.

Joy is the most elusive attribute I know, and I suspect not just for me, but for most of us. I mean real joy in life. Alive inside, more often than not, regardless of circumstance! A couple of months ago I read this quote from CS Lewis. "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, we are like ignorant children who want to continue making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." To live with an ongoing sense of joy has to first mean we have come to terms with our sufferings, and have leant to embrace them as teachers and growers of our character. In my own ramblings with joy I’m discovering joy also requires some deliberate intention and effort. As much as I would like joy to flow naturally, it seems to have a nature that needs purpose, and goal. I don’t think CS Lewis meant ‘drink, sex and ambition’ are not common with joy, rather he meant discover these, and other pleasures, in a far deeper way. Rather than fool with them as though they can satisfy, find the source of joy and let it inspire and strengthen your life. So what is the source of joy? Methinks it is seeing God/being in God, that reduces your own sense of importance and entitlement, which allows you to live with a greater sense of freedom, spontaneity and generosity that would normally otherwise escape you. The source of joy is to really know your life is not all about you, but actually all about God and others. Isn’t this why Jesus repeatedly said we should die to ourselves? Joy is when we get ourselves and our own (often) petty agendas out of the way. Then we are free to love with joy. I honestly don’t believe it gets better than this!

Continuing with Jesus and his family… I think it is one of the lesser known facts about Jesus’ life that he and his family had more then their fair share of misunderstanding and confusion. Most family encounters took place in his hometown of Nazareth, a nothing little village inhabited on the whole by Jesus’ wider family, “They rose up, dragged Jesus out of town, and took him to the top of the hill on which their town was built. They meant to throw him over the cliff, but he walked through the middle of the crowd and went his way.” On another trip to Nazareth, after he taught in the synagogue, they said, “Isn't he the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren't his sisters living here?" And so they rejected him. Again, in Nazareth, “a large crowd gathered that Jesus and his disciples had no time to eat. When his family heard about it, they set out to take charge of him, because people were saying, "He's gone mad!” Still in Nazareth, because Jesus was avoiding the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem who were wanting to kill him, his brothers came to him and had this conversation with him, “The Festival of Shelters is near, "Leave this place and go to Judea, so that your followers will see the things that you are doing. People don't hide what they are doing if they want to be well known. Since you are doing these things, let the whole world know about you! (Not even his brothers believed in him). Jesus replied, “You go on to the festival. I am not going to this festival, because the right time has not come for me." He said this and then stayed on in Galilee. After his brothers had gone to the festival, Jesus also went; however, he did not go openly, but secretly.” The next time we see the family all together, it is at the cross, and they are united, albeit in grief and sorrow. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there; so he said to his mother, "He is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "She is your mother." From that time the disciple took her to live in his home. Lastly, they are all together again, this time in Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts, “They gathered frequently to pray as a group, together with the women and with Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers.” The perfect family? By no means! A family called by God, in all their humanness, to be the instruments of God – through their confusion, misunderstandings, pain, sorrow, and suffering? Oh yes, just like our families.

Let's do some thinking about Jesus, and the ups and downs of his family life. We will start with his mother, Mary, and the seven sorrows she carried. Jesus’ family were real people with real problems. The first clue Mary got about the sorrow she would bear through the life of her son, was from the prophet, Simeon, when he said to her, “This child will be a sign from God which many people will speak against and so reveal their secret thoughts. And sorrow, like a sharp sword, will break your own heart.” Soon after Jesus’ birth, Mary’s family endured the plight of refugees, whose world of suffering, pain and hopelessness are transparent before us today. It was no different for Mary, and her toddler, Jesus, as they fled for Egypt in the middle of the night, and lived in a foreign land in fear of their lives. The next drama Mary faced was losing Jesus in Jerusalem, for three days, when he was twelve years old. Think of that happening to one of our children today! Perhaps these events were all preparation for Mary for what was still to come. Following Jesus’ journey of carrying his cross through the streets of Jerusalem, were a group of weeping women, one of which was Mary. If that was not enough, Mary then endured Jesus’ crucifixion itself. We read; “Standing close to Jesus' cross were his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” Then again, Mary grieved, as Jesus was laid to rest, “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph were watching and saw where the body of Jesus was placed.” What do we make of all of this? Are Mary’s experiences not a guide for family life today? The ups and downs we experience, the losses, tragedies, sufferings and sorrows that come our way, shape us, like they did her? Do Mary’s experiences not teach us that life’s most true and profound lessons are learnt the hard way? Were Mary and her family not who they were, to some extent because of what they had gone though, together? Is there not also some insight into a mother’s heart? Indeed, Mary is deserving of the title ‘a most blessed woman’, as so many parents still are today.