John 15:11
“I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.”
Where this sits
Still the upper room, in the vine discourse. These things refers to what he has just said about abiding and about being pruned.
Reflection
The possessive is the surprise. My joy. Jesus is not offering them a joy he recommends; he is offering the one he has.
That is worth sitting with, because of when he says it. This is the same evening as the arrest. Within hours he will be in Gethsemane sweating and asking for the cup to pass. Whatever he means by his joy, it is not incompatible with what is about to happen to him, and he speaks of it as a present possession on the worst night of his life.
And these things points backwards to the vine passage — which includes the pruning. He has just described a gardener cutting back branches that are already bearing fruit, so that they bear more. That is the context in which the joy is offered. Not instead of the knife.
May remain in you is the same verb used all through the chapter for abide. The joy is not visiting. It is being asked to take up residence, in the same way and by the same means as everything else in the passage.
And made full is a container word — filled to capacity, not topped up. Jesus does not describe joy as something added to a life. He describes it as something that fills one, and the measure he uses to define its completeness is his own.
- Theme:
- Joy
- Book:
- John