Rejoice

“Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” – Romans 5:2-5

Did you know that there are four main Greek words translated “rejoice” in the New Testament? Chairo is the one used most frequently (75 times); it means “to be glad,” and we’re familiar with it from the book of Philippians. Agalliaomeans “to jump for joy”; euphraino means “to cheer up.” The word Paul uses here is kauchaomai, and it has two meanings: “to glory in a thing or on account of a thing,” and “to boast.” It adds a kind of subtle redundancy here, to “glory in the hope of the glory of God.” 

The definition of “rejoice” from the dictionary is: “to feel or show great joy or delight.” If I had to explain the meaning of kauchaomai to one of the kids, I would say it’s to be happy about the nature of something so much that you need to show your happiness. It has to come out in some way. It’s a boasting in something, not to selfishly brag about it, but because you really want to show it off. Paul says that we should feel this way about the hope that we have.

Someone once said, “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.” I remember a friend once asked, “what is something you are looking forward to?” and I thought it was such a good question. What we look forward to keeps us going, doesn’t it? But the hope we have as believers isn’t just looking forward to the next exciting experience or anticipated pleasure. It’s not counting on when something bad will end. It’s not self-generated optimism or wishful thinking. Paul is quite specific here: it is hope of the glory of God. The glory of God is everything about him; the excellence and magnificence of every one of his qualities. There is a sense in which we experience God’s glory now: we stand in this grace; his love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. But there is a sense in which we anticipate much more to come, both here on earth but especially one day in the eternity to come.

And here, the awful mystery: this kind of hope comes in suffering. The more we continue in suffering, the more we endure, the more it shapes the nature and quality of our inner selves, the more, somehow, it leads to this exact kind of hope. This is why we rejoice in our sufferings the same way we rejoice in our hope: so happy about the very nature of its work in us that we can boast about it, that we must express it somehow. 

When I think about someone who rejoices this way, Joni Eareckson Tada comes to mind. She wrote a short booklet entitled Hope… The Best Of Things, in which she wrote: “I sure hope I can bring this wheelchair to heaven. Now, I know that’s not theologically correct. But I hope to bring it and put it in a little corner of heaven, and then in my new, perfect, glorified body, standing on grateful glorified legs, I’ll stand next to my Savior, holding his nail-pierced hands. I’ll say, ‘Thank you, Jesus,’ and he will know that I mean it, because he knows me. He’ll recognize me from the fellowship we’re now sharing in his sufferings. And I will say, ‘Jesus, do you see that wheelchair? You were right when you said that in this world we would have trouble, because that thing was a lot of trouble. But the weaker I was in that thing, the harder I leaned on you. And the harder I leaned on you, the stronger I discovered you to be. It never would have happened had you not given me the bruising of the blessing of that wheelchair.’ Then the real ticker-tape parade of praise will begin. And all of earth will join in the party. And at that point Christ will open up our eyes to the great fountain of joy in his heart for us beyond all that we ever experienced on earth. And when we’re able to stop laughing and crying, the Lord Jesus really will wipe away our tears. I find it so poignant that finally at the point when I do have the use of my arms to wipe away my own tears, I won’t have to, because God will.”