Blogging Through Joy, chapter 1

"For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." - Isaiah 55:12  


So I've decided to re-read "A Little Book on Joy," an amazing little book by LCMS President Rev. Matthew Harrison which is subtitled: "The Secret of Living a Good news Life in a Bad News World." I was inspired to reread this because of some comments made by one of my brother pastors (and good friend) here in the Green Bay Area, Rev. Peter Speckhard. He was speaking on the fruit of the Spirit (which is "love" in all its many facets).

The first chapter of Harrison's book is really more of an introduction to the book than anything else. The brief chapter focuses on the unexpectedness of seeing Mount Kilimanjaro from the air:

As the plane listed, I was surprised then immediately mesmerized by joy at one of the most spectacular sites I've ever beheld. It was like a white ice mountain in a sea of billowing cotton. There, some 20,000 feet below, was the enormous snow covered crater of Mount Kilimanjaro. It was miles wide, glistening and piercing majestically and proudly through a thick blanket of East African cloud cover.

Later, after describing a similarly unexpected viewing of the mountain, this time from the ground, Harrison writes about the one time he purposely tried to go view the mountain, only to be thwarted by rain and weather. It's a perfect metaphor for the quest to find joy. We can't just up and decide that today I'm going to be joyful. Today I'm going to rejoice. It can't come just from inside us... and if we seek it, chances are we won't find it. Again, Harrison writes:

So it is with joy, at least joy as a gift of the Spirit. There's no forcing it, no coercing it, no measuring it, no cooking it up. Whenever that happens, joy quickly is faked and feigned and, in fact, extinguished.... Nevertheless, where there is Jesus, there is joy.

We can't just decide one day to be filled with joy... but we can look to Christ. Jesus Christ, the One to whom the Holy Spirit has called us to have faith in, to believe in. When we look to our Savior, we find joy, and we find ourselves on the path to constant joy... joy even in the midst of this Bad News World we live in.

In fact, there is a kind of joy so profound, so enduring, that it can only be known and felt in one way. Its weaker shadows must be completely dashed and lost. Here's the secret: if we seek joy for its own sake, we will not find it. If we seek Jesus, we shall be engulfed and inundated by joy, and quite by surprise.

Source: "A Little Book on Joy," by Matthew C. Harrison, Lutheran Legacy, 2009, pp. 6-10.

Interview with LC-MS President-Elect Matthew Harrison

So by now most of you have probably heard that our beloved Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has elected a new Synodical President.

He was elected at the national convention last month and will be installed as the 13th president of the LC-MS in early September.

Rev. Matthew Harrison, however, who has been serving as the Executive Director of LC-MS World Relief and Human Care, is not necessarily a household name to the laypeople of our Synod. He recently gave an interview to the Reporter which, I believe, goes a long way toward revealing what kind of man, he is, what kind of a Christian and pastor he is, and what kind of a president he is going to be. I personally am very excited about the election of Rev. Harrison as our synodical president. I think he is a very learned man, very humble, extraordinarily confessional and grounded in the faith, and exactly the kind of president that Missouri needs in this tumultuous time.

The interview starts out this way:

Interviewer (James H. Heine): "What is your reaction to your election? You will now serve as the 13th president of the Synod."

Rev. Harrison: "It was a profound combination of joy and sorrow, of hope and also a great sense of my own unworthiness and sinfulness. To stand in front of that great body, a body that directs the future of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, which is, humanly speaking, the most significant force on the globe for confessional Lutheranism and for the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, was very, very humbling."

Read the whole thing here.