Edwin Markham in his poem The Shoes Of Happiness tells the
story of a king in Istanbul who was ill. He called his wise men
together to find a cure. They studied the situation and announced that
only one thing could cure him, and that was for him to wear the shoes
of a perfectly happy man. Off they went, therefore, to find this rare
man and bring back his shoes. They went to a rich man, but found
him unhappy because of worry over his money. They were
disappointed everywhere they went, for they could not find happiness
where they expected it. Neither the young nor the old supplied their man.
The young were restless that youth should stay; The old were sad that it went away.
On they searched finding lovers worried over their beloved, and
soldiers unhappy over their dead comrades, and even the wise
carefree pilgrim did not fit the bill.
But the pilgrim answered with star-still eyes,
I am not glad, I am only wise.
It appeared that the search was hopeless until one morning they
met a tramp of a man with laughter on his face, and he was singing as
he walked. They had found their happy man at last, and they rushed
to him eagerly only to discover that he had no shoes.
Markham was expressing his philosophy of happiness. He felt it
could only be found by giving up things. He had a point, for Jesus
recognized that some people are unhappy just because they are
possessed by their possessions. He counseled the rich one ruler to find
satisfaction and happiness by giving up his riches. It is possible then
to find happiness by the giving up of things. John Oxenham wrote,
Some have much, and some have more.
Some are rich, and some are poor,
Some have little, some have less,
Some have not a cent to bless.
Their empty pockets, yet possess
True riches in true happiness.
In Luke 6:20 Jesus is recorded as speaking to the literal poor and
saying, "Blessed (or happy) are ye poor for yours is the kingdom of
God." On the other hand, it would be very superficial to conclude
that poverty is the biblical road to bliss. The facts of life, and the rest
of Scripture no more support this than the other fallacy that riches
are the key to happiness. Kim Hubbard said, "It's pretty hard to tell
what does bring happiness. Poverty and wealth have both failed.
Most of what Jesus taught about happiness does not deal with the
absence or presence of possessions at all, but with what a person is in
himself. The blessedness, happiness, and joy of Christ was not in
anything he had, but in what he was. If our goal is to be Christlike
than a happy new year for us will consist in becoming more like Him.
Happiness on its highest level is not to be found in what comes to us,
but in what we come to be. That is what the beatitudes are all about.
Jesus knew the importance of being happy, and that is why He
begins His greatest sermon with a list of ways to be perfectly happy on
earth for those who would follow Him and be citizens of the kingdom
of heaven. Jesus wishes to each of His followers, not only a happy new
year, but a perpetually happy new life. Jesus expected His disciples to
be the happiest people on earth. Sometimes this has been true, and
sometimes not. Tertullian, and early Christian writer, said, "The
Christian saint is hilarious." Jesus said to His own, "My joy be with
you." The fruit of the spirit is joy, and time and time again through
history Christians have produced hilarious saints. A member of the
Salvation Army band was once asked not to beat the drums so loud.
He replied, "Lord bless you sir, since I have been converted I am so
happy, I could bust the blooming drums."
Every person wants to be happy, or if they are already reasonably
happy they want to be intensely happy. William James in his classic
book Varieties Of Religious Experience writes, "How to gain, how to
keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the
secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure."
Happiness is not only a result of health and peace of mind, it is also a
cause of these values. Philip Gibbs in The Hidden City writes,
"Unhappiness affects the internal secretions. It has an odd effect on
the heart sometimes. It lowers physical resistance. It debilitates the
nervous system and weakens willpower. Sometimes it leads to queer
obsessions. Louis Evans went so far as to say, "More people are sick
because they are unhappy than are unhappy because they are sick."
Happiness is medicine for the body, mind, and spirit of man, and Jesus
the Great Physician prescribes this medicine in its greatest potency.
If we are to have a happy new year, we must know what happiness
is, and how to obtain it. Our Declaration Of Independence declares
that all men have certain inalienable rights such as the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is no question about our
right to pursue happiness, but there is considerable question about the
chances of catching it, and the means by which it can be caught.
Happy is a word that comes from hap, which means chance.
Happiness is a matter of luck for many, and when they wish you happy
new year, they mean good luck-we hope you get all the breaks, and
that no misfortune befalls you. The happy-go-lucky man is one who
trusts to luck.
The earnest social worker said to the village reprobate, "Robert,
the last time I met you, you made me very happy because you were
sober. Today you have made me unhappy because you are
intoxicated." "Yes," replied Robert with a beaming smile, "Today its
my turn to be happy." Many feel that the essence of happiness is to be
intoxicated. It is fools paradise, however, and Paul warns in Eph.
5:15,18, "Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as
wise,....do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead,
be filled with the Spirit." The filling of the Spirit leads to all the
values that intoxication offers without any of the dangers and defects.
The joy of the Christians at Pentecost led people to accuse them of
being drunk. Jesus was also accused of being a wine bibber because of
His happiness in relation to sinners.
The loss of power in attracting the world to the church is due in
large measure to the loss of happiness. Happiness is essential, not only
to the health of the individual, but to the health of the church as a
whole. All men are looking for happiness, and only when they see
examples of the joy of Christ in human flesh will they be attracted to
the happiness He can give in forgiveness of sin, and assurance of
eternal life. We want to be happy, therefore, as a means to personal
health in our total being, and as a means to be used of God for
attracting others to God. In this introductory message on the
beatitudes it is our purpose to get a broad view of the subject of
happiness before we concentrate on the specifics.
We are not interested in the purely materialistic concept of
happiness. Rousseau said, "Happiness is a good bank account, a good
cook and a good digestion." There is some truth in this view, but
nothing that is distinctly human let alone Christian. This is the
happiness of a dog, a cow, or any animal. We want to look at those
philosophies of happiness that rise above the animal level, and which
are part of a total Christian view of happiness. These philosophies fall
into two basic categories. There are those which find the key to
happiness in externals, and those which find it within the mind of man.
Let's look at the external system first.
I. EXTERNAL SYSTEMS.
J. M. Goad said, "Now happiness consists in activity; such is the
constitution of our nature; it is a running stream, and not a stagnant
pool." Happiness is doing is the essence of this philosophy, and it is to
be pursued by work. Tolstoy said, "The happiness of man consists in
life, and life is in labor." Whittier wrote,
He who blesses most is blessed;
And God and man shall own his worth,
Who toils to leave as his bequest
And added beauty to the earth.
Many are philosophers and poets who expound the doctrine of
happiness through creative work. If you want to have a happy new
year, you must labor, build, and create. You cannot leave it to luck.
You must work to be happy. We can't go into the biblical philosophy
of work at this point, but nothing is more clear in the Bible than the
truth that work is a part of God's plan for man's happiness. God is a
worker, Jesus was a worker, and He urged His disciples to work for
the night was coming. "Sweet is the sleep of the laboring man," is the
Old Testament proverb. Work gives purpose to life, and gives a
person an outlet for creative energy. It brings the reward of
satisfaction and material blessings.
Canon Liddon, the great English preacher, said, "The happiest
days of my life have been those in which I have had the most work to
do, with fair health and strength to do it." Spurgeon, the most famous
of Baptist preachers, said, "The happiest state on earth is one in which
we have something to do, strength to do it with, and a fair return for
what we have done." Robert Louis Stevenson kept writing even when
he was in terrible pain. He did it because it was his secret of
happiness. He wrote, "There is no duty we so much under-rate as the
duty of being happy."
Helen Keller who was blind, deaf, and dumb, all of her life did so
much good because she felt it was her duty to be happy. She wrote, in
her book My Key Of Life, "But since I consider it a duty to myself
and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical
deprivation." Where did she get her inspiration of such a view of
happiness? She wrote, "His joyous optimism is like water to feverish
lips, and has for its highest expression the 8 beatitudes." We see then
that on paper and in real lives the finding of happiness in externals is
consistent with the happiness Jesus would have us possess. What we
do will certainly play a large role in determining our happy new year.
This is not the whole truth, however, so we need to also consider-
II. INTERNAL SYSTEMS.
Centuries ago Cicero said, "A happy life consists in tranquility of
mind." You can do all kinds of great work, but if you are filled with
fear and anxiety all your labor will not make you happy. Jesus
recognized the basic need for peace of mind and heart, and this was
one of the greatest gifts He offered to men. "Blessed are the pure in
heart," puts the emphasis on the inner nature of happiness. Henrich
Ibsen wrote, "Happiness is above all things, the calm, glad certainty of
innocence." Here is peace and purity combined. It is the peace of sin
forgiven and eliminated.
No one can dispute the internal nature of happiness. Jesus says the
externals can be such as to make you mourn, and you can be in the
midst of persecution, and yet it is possible to be happy because
happiness is not dependant upon the externals. This means that the
handicapped, the old, and the ill can still experience true happiness,
even if they cannot work and create. This is what lead Joshua
Liebman to write his book Peace Of Mind, which lead to an avalanche
of books on the subject both Christian and secular. The danger of the
peace of mind and happiness cults is that they make this partial grasp
of truth the whole, and expect to find the ultimate in the mind. This is
not new, for Seneca the ancient Roman said, "Unblessed is he who
thinks himself unblest." There is basic truth here, for Jesus said, "As
a man thinketh in his heart so is he." You can build a strong case for
the totally internal system of happiness.
Epicurus, the ancient philosopher, said, "Whoever does not regard
what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of
the world." Paul would not reject this partial truth of a pagan, for he
said, "I have learned to be content in whatever state I am." Paul
found happiness in the power of positive thinking. The truth of
happiness by means of peace of mind is universally recognized. We
had a Hindu from India for dinner on one Christmas. He was a
vegetarian from a community of vegetarians. He said that the motive
behind not eating animals was compassion on all life. Some carried
this to a greater extreme than others. Some of his people ate supper
at 5:30 rather than 7 or 8 like most. They do this for peace of mind.
If they ate later they would need to turn on their lamps, and dozens of
bugs would come to the light and be killed. So they eat before the sun
goes down, and avoid the needless killing. This gives them peace of
mind and makes them happy.
We see then that both the external and internal views of happiness
are valid in that both do account for much of what we call happiness in
human life. Both are recognized by Christians and non-Christians
alike. This means that in themselves neither of these systems of
happiness are distinctly Christian. The reason we have looked at them
briefly is that we might recognize that Christian truth does not
eliminate pre-Christian or non-Christian truth, but rather gathers up
the fragments and unifies them into a whole.
Jesus magnifies the meaning of happiness, and He goes beyond the
systems men have expounded so as to be all inclusive. Jesus
introduces something strikingly new into the philosophy of happiness
with His beatitudes. They are paradoxes in that they include among
the happy those that the systems of men exclude. Jesus is saying, even
those who are not happy according to the philosophies of men can be
happy. Even the unhappy can be happy. That is the paradox of His
teaching on happiness. His is the only truly universal philosophy of
happiness, for no person needs to be excluded. The happiness He can
give is not only universal, but it is unique in that He adds to the
external and internal the third dimension of the eternal. The
happiness of Christ is lasting, whereas the best that men can offer is
temporal.
What happens to the happiness in work philosophy when the boss
says you are getting a raise because they want your last week to be a
happy one? What happens to the happiness in the peace of mind
philosophy when tragedy strikes? In a moment all the happiness men
can gain by their philosophies can be shattered. Goethe said, "The
highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last." Because
this is so we need to move into a new and lasting dimension of
happiness in which we grasp and comprehend the teachings of Jesus in
the beatitudes.
