Ultimately we are called not only to happiness and goodness but also to holiness. Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God:’ What counts for God is not only our external conduct but also our inward disposition. Holiness does not mean merely performing the obligatory rituals on the out- side; it means staying pure on the inside. Yet holiness is not something we do for God. It issomething we do with God. We couldn’t do it without Him. In order for us to be more like Christ, we need Christ within us. In the words of that disheveled prophet John the Baptist, standing waist-deep in the river, “He must increase and I must decrease.” Paul says the same thing in Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” This is Christ’s countercultural challenge to us. In a society based on self-fulfillment and self- esteem, on looking after yourself and advancing yourself, Christ calls us to a heroic task of self-emptying. He must increase and we must decrease. This we do by allowing his empire an ever greater domain in our hearts. Goodness and happiness flow from this.
For the Christian, human joys are a small foreshadowing of the joys that are in store. Terrestrial happiness is only a foretaste of eternity. As the book of Revelation 21:4 puts it, “God will wipe away every tear, and there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away:’ It is in this spirit that the Christian awaits this final moment of destiny, relishing the gift of life while every day proclaiming, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus. We are ready.
