my joy might be in you and
your joy might be complete.
Fill us with your joy, LORD. Let us remain in your love so that we can have the complete joy that you want for us.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love
Your commandments are boundaries that tell us how to avoid excluding ourselves from your love. The teach us not to get up and walk away from you. They aren't the path by which we come to you. But they tell us how to stay near you after you seek out and find us. This is where we experience your love and your joy. It would be enough to feel joy because you love us. But in your love we experience not simply weak human joy but your own strong, divine, and unshakable joy. It is the joy of finding the lost sheep, of finding the lost coin, of the prodigal returned home. We even experience the joy you take in us. This is overwhelming to us, because we don't seem worthy to have anything to do with your joy. But let us listen to the father in the parable of the prodigal son: "It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found."
Jesus, you want us to experience this joy of yours. You want us to rejoice when any lost sheep comes home, to rejoice that "the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and believe." You want us to rejoice and make "no distinction between us and them". We "are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they." Without distinction we all receive the same Holy Spirit and are filled with your joy. It is not our own joy at our own circumstances. It is your joy as the kingdom grows in our midst.
No wonder circumcision is only a temporary sign marking your covenant people as separate. You are uniting the whole world in this joy. You are building a kingdom for all of humanity. You don't rejoice to create an in crowd or to exclude anyone. And even though circumcision was an important temporary step along the way this universal kingdom is your plan from the beginning.
After this I shall return
and rebuild the fallen hut of David;
from its ruins I shall rebuild it
and raise it up again,
so that the rest of humanity may seek out the Lord,
even all the Gentiles on whom my name is invoked.
Thus says the Lord who accomplishes these things,
known from of old.
You are helping us learn to have a joy which does not originate in our selfishness. You are helping us to have a joy that is rooted in your limitless goodness. This is what why we announce your salvation day after day, tell your glory among the nations, and among all peoples, your wondrous deeds.
Give us hearts which "Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations." Make those deeds, that goodness, the source of our joy just as it is your joy. Then we finally experience the joy and peace which cannot be moved, which the world cannot take away.
Say among the nations: The LORD is king.
He has made the world firm, not to be moved;
he governs the peoples with equity.
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