Feb 6, 2022
Presbyterian minister Henry van Dyke wrote Joyful, Joyful We
Adore Thee, an ecstatic celebration of Christian unity, in
1907. He intended the poem to be sung to the melody of the final
movement of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 in D minor, which was itself
a setting of an earlier poem by Friedrich Schiller called “Ode to
Joy.” The Ode uses flowery and somewhat utopian eighteenth-century
language to paint a picture of universal brotherhood under the
watchful eye of a loving heavenly father. While Schiller’s poem
only hints at the potential of human unity in some distant future,
Christians can point to the concrete experience of unity in Christ.
Because of Jesus’s atoning work on the cross, we are declared
faithful souls who can press on towards the goal together (Psalm
101:6). We are, through grace, members of Zion’s city, able to
devote ourselves to fellowship and the breaking of bread (Acts
2:42). Because we rely on Him alone, we can join in love within the
house of God—and that is truly joyful to see. Though sin and
conflict will inevitably mar this unity, as it had in the situation
Paul addresses in 2 Corinthians 2, we have the ability and the duty
to forgive one another. We love because He first loved us and gave
us pardon. In response, we should take up the prayer of Joyful,
Joyful We Adore Thee: “Teach us how to love each other.”
—Henry C. Haffner
Key Words: Pain, Joy, Love, Forgive, Comfort,
Outwitted
Keystone Verse: You should rather turn to forgive
and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. (2
Corinthians 2:7)
2 Corinthians 2:1-11
For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you.
2 For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad
but the one whom I have pained? 3 And I wrote as I did,
so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should
have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy
would be the joy of you all. 4 For I wrote to you out of
much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to
cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have
for you. 5 Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused
it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all
of you. 6 For such a one, this punishment by the
majority is enough, 7 so you should rather turn to
forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive
sorrow. 8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.
9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and
know whether you are obedient in everything. 10 Anyone
whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if
I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of
Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan;
for we are not ignorant of his designs