¹¹ “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”

Life to the full (John 10:10) can be had even when hard times come. The more we know that before those experiences arrive, the better position we are in to experience supernatural joy. This is even more so, when we fast forward our story from the Upper Room to the crucifixion and the post-resurrection experience. Think carefully of the difference.

As the disciples became reluctant participants in the unfolding drama, they fled the crucifixion, having abandoned Him, save for the minimal proximity of the disciple John and the unwillingness of Peter to even be associated with Him. How in the world could Jesus’ words of a promised joy have any valid meaning? If anything, at the cross His words must have seemed pathetic, as those of a disillusioned positive-thinker. How could those words have offered any comfort or hope when the One who healed others, raised them from the dead, gave them hope, was Himself beaten beyond recognition? The prophet wrote of Him, “His appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men … He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him” (Isaiah 52:14, 53:2). But the disciples were not connecting those dots.

Before the resurrection, the suffering and crucifixion would seem meaningless. But after the resurrection, the words of joy Jesus spoke in the Upper Room would take on greater meaning at different levels. Obviously, there was joy at seeing Him again. Advance this joy up a notch at the next thought, that Jesus had beaten death and come back to life. Further, if death did not have mastery over their Lord for whom they dedicated their lives, then death had also lost its sting for them (1 Cor 15:55-56).

But the words of Jesus had an even more profound effect on the disciples in the coming years of persecution. Since Jesus had spoken these words of joy to them before His suffering and crucifixion, that meant that joy could be experienced in the midst of suffering and before their resurrection. They could experience the presence of Christ in suffering. Paul, who was not present in the Upper Room, came to know this truth; his desire was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…” (Phil 3:10). We, therefore, come to know Christ more deeply when we are, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame…” (Heb 12:2).

Father, help me see Your Son more clearly in the midst of my trials.