“The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.” –– Why?
Because everything was going great?
From what we hear in our first Reading about Paul and Barnabas’s visit to Antioch is doesn’t sound like it (Acts 13:14, 43-52). Sure, there were people who were glad to see them, and maybe more were converted, but overall the visit was hardly a great success. There were the usual factions and arguments that we recognize so easily in our own times, yelling and arguing and abuse. In the end Paul and Barnabas were thrown out of the city, and departed in disgust. So what was there to be joyful about?
Following our own Easter, would we describe ourselves as filled with joy? For sure there are things that make us happy, but filled with joy? As we look out at the world and see war and brutality, not to mention factions and abuse, joy is probably not the most likely reaction. Life is complicated. For those early Christians it seems simple, too simple to be true. Where did their joy come from?
The early Christians were joyful not because the world suddenly became a better place. They were not naive or deluded. They were joyful because they understood Jesus had given them eternal life.
“All who were destined for eternal life came to believe”. The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit (the two went together) because they believed; because they understood they had eternal life; because they heard the words of Jesus who said (as John tells it in our Gospel reading Jn 10:27-30):
“My sheep hear my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
No one can take them out of my hand.“
So all the challenges and trials they faced in life looked different. Even the persecution when it came was accepted with joy (Rev 7:9, 14b-17). They knew they would be washed by the blood of the Lamb, as John of Patmos put it.
Jesus told Pilate, and us, ”My Kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36) and yet we still look for it in terms of success in this world. By the standards of this world the early Christians were successful, despite the challenges. The Church grew in numbers, as today’s readings from Acts tells us – ”the word of the Lord continued to spread through the whole region”. But that “success” was not the point. The disciples weren’t joyful because they thought they were winning. This wasn’t a political campaign.
We may find it hard to accept that success is not measured by clicks or likes or the number of friends you have, that joy doesn’t come from the approval of those around us, or from increased acceptance of the things we believe in. We may find it hard to imagine feeling joyful under persecution. But as we look back at those disciples in Antioch, and at so many others in so many other times and places, we can take courage from their example, and know that we can be joyful and filled with the Holy Spirit, whatever the circumstances. Jesus has given us eternal life, and we cannot be taken away from him.