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May 14, 2023: There was Great Joy in that City
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What does it take for a city or town to have these words spoken about them; “There was great joy in that city?” Does it take a state championship in a high school sport? Certainly, for a town, especially a small town, winning such an event would possibly bring a community to fever pitch. They would be playing that famous Queen song, “We Are the Champions of the World” for days on end. World championships from the respective Boston teams over past 20 or so years have resulted in championship parades in Boston that included millions of fans celebrating at fever pitch the fact that the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, or Bruins won a world championship.
It is true that winning a title in professional, high school, or college sports will bring towns and cities to “great joy.” Then reality sets in after a short time. The issues at work have not gone away; the person we know and love is still closing in on death’s door; the family financial situation remains precarious; loneliness and depression remain factors in the lives of many folks; the family pet is still lost, and so forth. What world championships, or state championships (high school) and national championships (college) for towns and cities can do is lift the burden of real life for a while, which is nice. Real nice. Such titles earned through hard work, hours of practice, excelling at one’s respective sport through tough competition and coming out on top, is more than a diversion from the real world of issues. They are remembered for the rest of our lives with a deep sense of joy and contentment. “Yes, we won, and we will never forget the experience.”
I recall the spring of 1977 well. The baseball team yours truly played for in high school at the now-closed St. Peter-Marian won a state championship in early June of that year. We almost blew the state championship game, winning 5-4. We had a 4-0 lead in the top of the 9th inning, and our pitcher, Tom Horan, who without his great pitching season we would never have made the championship game, got tired. He must have thrown at least 175 pitches that game (well before pitch counts in baseball were taken, a stat I wish they would get rid of), and by the time the game reached the 9th inning, Tom was dog tired. Being the trooper he was/is, he tried to finish the game, but was unable to after the opponent, Arlington High School, scored four runs in the top of the 9th inning. Well, we came to bat in the bottom of the 9th inning, and two hitters later we were celebrating on the field as Division 1 state champions. It’s a moment and experience not to be forgotten by those involved. There was great joy at the newly formed school, St. Peter-Marian, especially with our girls’ softball team winning their own Division 1 state championship on the same day. And after winning their game, they stopped by to watch us finish off Arlington.
Again, sports championships are the best of outlets for the words, “There was great joy in that city.” But there are other ways too for a city or town to reach fever pitch as a community besides sports victories. Heroic, on the spot actions have the same capacity to raise a community, or certain departments in cities and towns, to fever pitch. Anyone who saves a person’s life, or the lives of many people in a fire, for example, brings forth cause for celebrating the greatest of actions. I recall a very good friend of mine who grew up a couple of houses over from my family’s home in our neighborhood behind St. Bernard’s Church in Worcester. I’ll keep him unnamed because of his genuine humility. He went on to work for the Worcester Fire Department, eventually earning the rank of Captain. Well, one day they received a call for a fire at a house on Lake Quinsig, obviously on the Worcester side. What the firefighters did not know when they arrived was the presence of tanks of gasoline for use of a boat on the Lake, tanks that were unseen in the basement of the house. To keep the story brief, the tanks exploded when a handful of firefighters were in the basement of the house. Captain ---- ran into the house, literally picked up 2 or 3 fellow firefighters one at a time, and threw them out of the burning structure, saving their lives. Talk about fever pitch! My friend humbly accepted a state award for his actions only because he had to, recognized for his heroic actions that day on the lake, which was anything but a day at the beach. How many soldiers in the military have done the same? Too many to be counted. Selfless, courageous, heroic acts can bring a community to “great joy in that city” when no life is lost.
The Apostle Philip made a trek down to Samaria not long after Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. The same Jesus who told them, “I will be with you until the end of the age.” Well, as he always does, the Lord kept his word. When Philip entered Samaria, the same area where the Samaritan Woman was converted to holiness by Jesus at Jacob’s Well, and, the same place where Samaritans had nothing to do with Jews, Philip, like Jesus and through Jesus, changed that sort of thinking. By the time Philip was finished curing every ill and disabled person he crossed paths with, the Acts of the Apostles tells us, “There was great joy in that city.” A state championship had been won, or, a world title. Philip drew the people of Samaria into a frenzy of joy, an experience of the Spirit never known before that day through the miracles wrought by Philip in the name of Christ Jesus. The Samaritans probably asked Philip if he was performing said miracles in the name of the same person who brought to God the (Samaritan) woman who was now living the cleanest and holiest life in their town. “Of course,” Philip answered, “Yes, it’s the same Jesus. And I and my friends were with him the day the Lord came to this place, converting your now saintly resident, leading her to the joys of heaven one day.”
The great joy in Samaria brought about that day by Philip’s actions in the name of Jesus is a verse in Scripture we do well to recall and hold close. With the many ways of our world today “losing its religion,” in need of a revival that would go far towards reversing the present course of belittling and watering down true religion, we serve our Christian joy by understanding that sports championships and heroic individual actions are not the only ways we arrive at some deeper sense of the joy that Christ has won for all of us in his resurrection from the tomb. I do believe that miracles like the ones wrought at the hands and words of St. Philip in Samaria occur every day in our world, more times than not in the silence of someone’s deep faith life. If my sciatica issue was all of a sudden straightened out to the point of knowing that God gave me special attention and favor, causing it to disappear for good, I would probably tell a few people I know well, thank God profusely, and move on to my next priestly day. I suspect that many miracles which happen today end up this way, where the recipient tells a few people, but not the entire community. Jesus is alive and active among us. So, rather than entire cities and towns celebrating great joy over a wider public event like a victorious sporting contest, another type of “great joy in that city” speaks more to smaller pockets of great joy in families and among best friends who make up a person’s “city,” sharing their joy on how God has touched their life.
The greater point here is for us to recall that joy as a lived virtue has not gone by the wayside in this world. God has not abandoned us. We don’t have to wait for a sports championship to happen, or a heroic act, or the right person getting elected to office (whatever side you choose). Such events are cause for joy and excitement in cities and towns, but how often do they happen? It can take years. Also, as good as they are, they are not the height of joy for a Christian. The highest joy for Christians is to embrace and live what the truest religion teaches us based on testimony that can be trusted; that Jesus is alive, and so are we. To lose such truthful joy because some politicians are complicit in evil things that attack everything from secure finances, to our religious freedom, to life itself, is to cheat oneself from the victory won for us in Christ. Christian joy is greater than the foibles of a fallen world that has now been saved through Jesus of Nazareth.
“Philip went down to Samaria and proclaimed the Christ to them.” The same Christ from Jacob’s Well, for there is only one “Anointed One.” Philip drew the inhabitants of Samaria into a frenzy, into great joy, as he revealed and reintroduced the presence of Jesus to a people who were ripe for a good dose of great joy. Philip raised their spirits to new heights, as miracles benefiting the sick will do. After all, who doesn’t want to go from sickness to health? Even though we will not do what St. Philip did in Samaria in the 1st century, we still have the responsibility of being part of the crowd in this world who live great joy in our personal city. To lose this is to almost give in to the evil that surrounds us, allowing you-know-who to have some level of control over our present joy that one day will become complete joy. Our joy is found in Christ, and in him alone may we live. Tough moments will arise, but the joy God has prepared for us will not be lost because of events and people who seem to go the other way, for the of joy has already begun.