Almost a year ago, I wrote about joy around Advent. I wrote about joy in the midst of interruption.
This summer I was a chaplain (Spiritual Care) intern at a hospital where I encountered an amazingly diverse collection of people; both patients and medical staff. I spent most of my time on a Cardiothoracic unit which included both an ICU and a standard unit. During my summer there I encountered patients suffering from a wide range of maladies in their hearts and lungs, most of which either were life-threatening and/or required a very long stay in the hospital for treatment.
One thing I discovered pretty quickly when I arrived, was that the patients and staff who handled grave health issues well were not the ones who were tough. Hospitals have a way of breaking one’s toughness down pretty fast. The people who rose up to meet these health problems well were people with joy. I could see it in their faces, hear it in their voices. I could almost smell it in the air. It was something like the force being strong with them, only much, much deeper and more profound. As a student of ministry, I was intrigued by what this joy was and why some had it and others didn’t. So I watched and listened and I learned something about joy that I hadn’t been able to articulate before.
One day one of the social workers and I hosted a tea and reflection time on the unit. A dearly beloved patient had recently pass away and morale was low, so the two of us came to be supportive to the medical staff. While we were gathered around the break room table, I asked one of the veteran nurses (they liked to be called RN’s) how they find the strength to be so professional and caring day-in and day-out. Their response took me by surprise. They said, “We keep our professional role faces on while we’re at work and then we go and cry in our cars.”
“So how do you keep coming back to work?” I asked.
“I can only speak for myself, but I know they (patients) aren’t in my hands ultimately. I give them my very best while I have them and I have to trust that they’re in God’s hands when they leave, either on their own or not.”
That’s what joy is.
I wouldn’t take back anything I wrote before about joy, but that RN showed me another part of joy that is so important. Joy is a deep gladness that rooted in the understanding that we are safe in God’s hands.
Joy is what enables us to endure the darkest of nights, the storms of life and face mortality in a state of grace, because we know in our hearts that we are safe. Joy grows when we actively remember that good news that in Christ Jesus we rest secure in the palm of God’s hand knowing that God will never ever let us go (Romans 8:31-39).
This is what makes St. John’s Revelation a vision of Joy rather than terror. The waves of horror that are described are themselves bound by the greater power of the lamb. As bad as they are, God has the final word. Christ is the only one who get to say, “It is finished!”
The RN knew when their beloved patient passed away, that event did not have the final word.
Joy that abides is the sure and certain knowledge that the final word belongs to one who created us, covenanted with us, died for us, was raised for us and now holds us in an everlasting embrace.
The Mirror's Enigma 