The most striking expression of this kind of joy is found in Romans, where Paul shows how the experience of deep joy is bound up with the great truths of the gospel. Having just explained how justification through faith, by grace is the basis of our new standing before God, he says, ‘And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God’ (Ro 5.2); but he goes on to say, ‘Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings…’ (5.3).

The French Jesuit priest and philosopher, Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) said, ‘Joy is not the absence of pain’. Others have made the same observation repeatedly, either quoting de Chardin, or else expressing the same thought from their own perspective. It is a vital aspect of the joy we discover in the Bible and something we very much need to grasp if we are to experience this joy ourselves.

It is hardly surprising that people are shocked by this definition of joy. It jars with the prevailing notion that joy is found only in the good things of life. But, no matter how much we may try to fill our life with good things, we cannot exclude the bad and ultimately we cannot escape the dark shadow of death that casts its pall over life itself.

The Scottish minister, George Matheson, captured the richness of this distinctively biblical understanding of joy in the hymn, ‘O love that wilt not let me go’. At first sight it may seem to focus on the theme of love; but, as the verses unfold, it homes in on the joy bound up with the love of God.

Matheson goes on to speak about a ‘richer, fuller’ life and a ‘flickering torch’ whose ‘borrowed ray’ is ultimately restored. But then comes what is arguably the most arresting verse of the entire hymn:

O joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
and feel the promise is not vain
that morn shall tearless be.

The author gives the context for the hymn in his own words, explaining that it was “written in the Manse of my former parish (Innellan, Argyleshire) one summer evening in 1882. It was composed with extreme rapidity; it seemed to me that its construction occupied only a few minutes, and I felt myself rather in the position of one who was being dictated to than of an original artist I was suffering from extreme mental distress, and the hymn was the fruit of pain.”

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