The Gladness of the Risen Son

The Gladness of the Risen Son




“You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.” Acts 2:28

Three Easter Morning Questions

Let’s begin the lesson with three questions for you to answer silently in your own mind.

• First, do you want to be happy?

• Second, do you want your happiness to be partial or full?

• Third, do you want your happiness to stop or to last as long as you last?

The reason I count these questions worthy of Easter Sunday morning is not just because I think every person in this room cares about them, but also because these questions are the rock bottom concerns of the Bible.

Wherever the Bible has had its profoundest effect in people's lives, it hasn't been because of the demands of some new sense of duty, but because of the power of a new pleasure.

The Bible Produces a Serious Pursuit of Happiness

People who know the Bible best and who have experienced it most deeply are not diverted from the quest for happiness and pleasure. Instead, it has caused people to get really serious about the quest. It has caused them to ask, "Do I really want to be happy? Do I want the fullest happiness possible? Do I want my happiness to last forever?" In other words, the Bible makes us stop playing games with our happiness. It makes us serious, even desperate, in our pursuit.

It makes a harried and overworked businessman go away for a few days and sit by the lake, and look at the sunset and the stars, and ask: "Have I found it? Is this what I am really after? Does it satisfy? Will it last?"

Jesus Christ never once condemned the quest for happiness. But often he has rebuked us for taking it so lightly.

Now what does all this have to do with Easter Sunday? Let’s try to relate the two.

The Earliest Days of the Church

In Acts 1:3 Luke tells us that Jesus “appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.”

For forty days he sought to prove to his followers that he really was alive,

• that his body was new and indestructible,

• that his death for sinners was validated,

• that his teaching was true,

• that his fellowship would be permanent,

• and that his cause would triumph in the world.

Then when “..the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.” (Mark 16:19) And there he will reign until He comes a second time in power and great glory, and all Believers, those of us who have a relationship with Jesus, will reign with him forever and ever.

The Apostles Pondering the Old Testament

Then the book of Acts goes on to show us that for ten days after Jesus had ascended to heaven the apostles and Jesus' mother and his brothers devoted themselves to prayer in Jerusalem. During these ten days Peter and the others must have combed the Old Testament for predictions and explanations of what was happening in these incredible days, because when the Holy Spirit finally comes upon them with power at the end of those ten days, the apostles are full of Scripture. They explain everything in terms of the fulfillment of Scripture. This is apparent in Acts 2:14-41.

One of the psalms that Peter evidently pondered was Psalm 16.

The reason we know that Peter had given thought to this psalm is that he quotes from it in Acts 2:25–28. “I see that the LORD is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave. You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.”

What Peter Saw in Psalm 16

We know that God gave David a promise (in 2 Samuel 7:12–16) that one of his own posterity would be the everlasting king of Israel — the Son of David, the Messiah (Isaiah 9:6–7). David must have often thought of this wonderful thing — that in his own body, as it were, there was a king whose reign would never end.

And Peter noticed in reading the psalms of David that sometimes, as David expressed his own hope in God, he would be caught up by the Holy Spirit to say things about himself that went far beyond what his own experience would be. It was as though David were sometimes transported into the future of his son the Messiah and would say things that only the Son of David would experience sometime in the future.

How Will David Not Be Shaken?

This is what Peter saw as he meditated on Psalm 16. He read, "I see that the LORD is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me." (Acts 2:25.) And maybe he asked, "In what sense will David not be shaken?"

So he reads on for the answer. Acts 2:26—"No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises!" And Peter ponders and answers his question: "The sense in which David will not be shaken is that he is secure in God. He will be protected—soul and body."

Will David's Flesh Really Never See Corruption?

Then Peter asks, "How will they be protected? How safe is David really? Will he not die? Did he not die?" Peter reads on (Acts 2:27), "For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave". Peter looks at this for a long time. He ponders, "Will David not die? Will David body not ever decay? Does he really expect this much protection for himself?"

And suddenly (or gradually?) it dawns on Peter that these words go beyond anything that David experienced. David did die! David was buried! David's flesh did decay. So Peter recognizes that David is no longer speaking merely for himself. The Spirit has lifted him up to see the destiny of the second David. And the voice of the Messiah is heard prophetically in the voice of his father David.

This Is What Happened to Jesus!

And then the connection with Jesus hits home. This is what happened to Jesus! Peter makes the connection for us in Acts 2:31 — "David was looking into the future and speaking of the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that God would not leave him among the dead or allow his body to rot in the grave. God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this.”

God's Goal for Jesus' Gladness

Now right here we begin to make the connection with that longing for happiness that was mentioned in beginning of lesson. In Acts 2:28 Peter goes on to quote from the last verse of Psalm 16. But now we know that it is really Jesus, the Son of David, speaking through the voice of the prophet David: “You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.”

And the psalm ends with (though Peter doesn't finish it), "the pleasures of living with you forever”.

In other words, what we see from this text is that God's goal for Jesus Christ beyond the grave was that he might fill him with gladness. He raised him from the dead to make him full of happiness forever and ever.

Our Gladness and the Gladness of the Risen God

Now what does the gladness of the risen God have to do with us?

Sanctioning the Pursuit of Gladness

Jesus didn't just happen upon this gladness beyond the grave; he pursued it with all his might. Hebrews 12:2 says, "Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.”

This means that, if anyone has a deep longing for happiness, you will not be told by Jesus Christ that this longing is bad, or that it must be denied or that you should have nobler goals on Easter than happiness. Jesus lived for the joy that was set before him. He is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. And therefore he sanctioned the thirst of our souls by the thirst of his own.

But there's more. If all Jesus wanted was the glory and gladness that he had with his Father Heaven, why did he come into the world in the first place? The Bible says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).

The message of Easter is doubly wonderful.

It is wonderful to see the suffering Son coming home to the Father. What a reunion that must have been when Creator embraced Creator and said, "Well done Son. Welcome home." What a wonderful thing to see the Passover Lamb of Good Friday crowned with glory and honor, and handed the scepter of the universe!

But it is also wonderful to hear Jesus say, "I want others to be with me, Father. I want others to share my glory. I want my gladness in your glory to overflow like a mountain spring and become the gladness of others. I want my joy in you to be in them and their joy to be full forever and ever."

On Easter Sunday morning Jesus blew the lock off the prison of death and gloom and returned to the gladness of God. With that he put his blessings on the pursuit of happiness. And he opened the way for sinners to find never-ending satisfaction at the fountain of the glory of his grace.

From the right hand of God he speaks to everyone of us today and invites us to the never-ending banquet:

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35)