“What do you consider the difference between worldly joy and God’s joy?” Michael asked.
“Worldly joy is of course joy, but it cannot be compared with the joy that God offers to the human soul. There is a gigantic difference. Worldly joy is temporal. Let us say I have won the lottery and I am filled with joy. It is an event that happens outside myself. I accept the stimulation of the external event and I feel happy. My joy, however, lasts only for as long as this event lasts. When the external event comes to an end, my own inner joy also comes to an end.”
“These external events that bring us joy are always tenuous and threaten to come to an end,” I pointed out, having in mind the string of losses that we unavoidably experience as we advance in age.
“Yes. Life does not promise us an unending source of joy, regardless of what we do. Let us assume we live a utopian existence,” Fr. Maximos went on. “Let us assume that all the circumstances and events in our lives are so beautiful, so ideal, so perfectly positive, that happiness is part of our everyday reality. Yet in spite of that happiness, an event will, like Damocles’ sword, always threaten to destroy everything, the lurking nightmare of our inevitable death. Death eliminates this worldly joy.”
“Time is our enemy. Every moment that passes brings us closer to our end,” someone muttered.
“The joy of this world is threatened by death, and anything that comes to an end cannot ultimately bring joy to the human soul,” Fr. Maximos continued. “Anything that has a terminal date cannot offer real comfort to human beings, who are created in the image of the infinite and eternal God. A human being can be truly joyous only within that which is absolutely his, the eternal joy that characterizes God Himself. A human being feels rested and joyous when those things that cause joy are sealed with the mark of eternity. Anything that is sealed with death cannot provide lasting happiness because we know that one day it will be gone. Divine joy, on the other hand, is a condition that is dormant at the very depths of human existence.”
“Sometimes we panic in the face of our mortality,” I pointed out. “We repress the fear of death and do everything possible to forget that our life’s clock is ticking.”
Fr. Maximos nodded. “Human beings would do anything to eliminate the vagaries of time.”
“Wouldn’t you say, Fr. Maxime,” I asked, “that this is a natural reaction?”
“Of course! We are not created for decay and death. Anything of limited duration creates this insecurity in us. During funerals you hear the most ridiculous speeches. You hear people addressing the dead, ‘Go in peace and we will remember you forever.’ But who is going to live forever to remember the dead person?”
“Why then during the memorial services do we chant, ‘May her memory be eternal’?” Emily asked.
“It is only God who will remember her forever. People will remember us for as long as they are alive. But after they are gone, what becomes of the memory?”
“A hundred years after we die no one will remember us,” I pronounced.
“Much less than that. Do we remember people who died fifty years ago’ I wasn’t even born then. It is God who will remember us forever. It is God who offers us this sense of eternity, this security, the absolute certainty that even death, our ultimate adversary, does not bring about our annihilation and oblivion. Through the experience of Christ, it is death that is annihilated. That’s when real joy enters into our lives.
~Adapted from Kyriacos C. Markides, Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality
