Joy Beyond Understanding: Common Ground in Suffering and Worship among Eastern European Christians During the Communist Era

PneumaReview.com invites you to read this paper by Professor Eugen Jugaru and discuss the connection between joy and suffering.

Abstract

Suffering for the Christian faith and Christian worship exuberance, paradoxically have a common ground: a joy beyond understanding which comes from the Holy Spirit. The reality of this unusual and passionate experience: joy in sufferings and worship, was experienced by Christians in Romania, a country that for 45 years was ruled by a fierce atheist Communist regime. Their experiences were similar to the first-century Christians who after being beaten for breaking the interdiction to spread the Gospel, “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His (Christ’s) name” (Acts. 5:40-41). Two Christians remained examples for Romanian Christians by their determination in persecution, Richard Wurmbrand and Nicolae Steinhardt.

Also during the persecution in Romania, believers who were not imprisoned have also experienced a deep presence of the Holy Spirit in worship. These moments flooded their hearts with unimaginable joy which gave them power to forgive their enemies and to receive strength to face courageously the atheist regime.

I will be presenting the reality of joy beyond understanding in suffering and worship due to the presence and empowering of the Holy Spirit through the use of written narrative testimonies of Richard Wurmbrand and Nicolae Steinhardt as well as other written testimonies of Christians within the Pentecostal churches of Romania during the same period under the Communist regime. I will be providing an interpretive layer on the materials that will connect their responses to the work of the Spirit. By using current writings and observation I then will reveal the diminishing of this experience in contemporary post-Communism as reflected in the Christian experience in Romania.

Introduction

The theme of joy, whether it is viewed from a Christian perspective based on soteriological or pneumatological elements or whether from secular perspective, is a current topic due to general pessimism which seems to mark the contemporary generation. While we enjoy many of the products and services that did not benefited our parents it seems that there is an unseen enemy of joy that does not allow us to live our lives with great confidence and profound optimism. Joy of life today is overshadowed by the burden of stress, by the assault of various news media, especially negative news, by the fear of sickness or by anxiety of an unsure future due to multiple crises.

In this paper I will be presenting the idea that there can be a real and a deep joy, a joy beyond understanding, beyond the comprehension of our mind and reason, a joy in suffering and in worship, in prayers and songs for those who have accepted the Christian perspective on life. As an example to support this thesis I present the testimonies of several Christians from different denominations, who experienced a joy beyond understanding when they were imprisoned. Their experience can teach us today about the joy beyond understanding, a real joy that surpass difficulties of the life and can help us today when we have freedom and rights, but consequently less joy.

What is joy beyond understanding and how does this kind of joy manifest itself?

Joy beyond understanding is that state of spiritual exaltation that makes a person who has it to forget the difficulties of the life and to experience God’s presence in a very strong, real and personal way.

Joy beyond understanding and comprehension does not depend on the circumstances of life, it is rooted in God’s continual presence and grace, for it is a work of the Holy Spirit. Usually joy is that personal feeling due to certain achievements or because of good news received, but joy beyond understanding does not depend on such external input. Joy beyond understanding cannot be expressed well in words; it can be experienced, felt but not fully communicated in words.

The manifestation of joy beyond understanding can be expressed by a shining upon the face or even by tears of joy. Personally, I think that a smile and laughter can be a manifestation of joy, but does not suggests in the best way the depth of joy, it is not so deep as the tears of joy which cannot be stopped. I watched TV programs broadcasting live emotional meetings between people who have not met for many years, between life partners or between parents and children, and in most of these exciting meetings protagonists could not retain tears of joy.

The joy beyond understanding does not comes from a human predisposition toward happiness or, as I related before from the satisfaction of personal achievement, but its source is divine, it is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:20-22). When Paul contrasts the works of the flesh and the fruit of Holy Spirit, he revealed that among the items and fruit of the Spirit is also joy (Greek chara).

Joy beyond understanding from the New Testament perspective

As soon as the Christian community was born, during the first century, the sufferings and persecution of the Christian Church was felt first from the Jewish leaders and then from political leaders. These leaders had forbidden the Apostles to spread the Gospel News, and because they did not obey them, they were beaten with rods, but they rejoiced instead to complaining because this harsh treatment, they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus (Acts 5:41).

The joy in suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ has direct connection with the spiritual presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. Jesus promised to his disciples that during the process of persecution they will not be alone because the Holy Spirit will inspire, will accompany, will sustain them in their testimonies and will enable them to share the Gospel of the Kingdom (see Matt. 10:18-20, Mk. 13:11; Luke 12:11-12, 21:14-15). This close connection between person of Holy Spirit and joy in suffering is highlighted in Acts 13:52 when “the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit” even if they had been persecuted for their faith. Also, Christians in Thessalonica, receiving the word of God “in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit” (I Thes.1: 6).

In his evangelistic mission, Paul experienced many trials and persecutions, but his attitude of joy in suffering, paradoxically and incomprehensibly understood by many, was an experience which Paul did not regret, he was glad that it was worthy to suffer for the sake of Gospel (2 Cor. 6:4-10). Those who persecuted them considered Paul and his companion as impostors who deserve to be punished but actually they were rejoicing and blessing people, making many people rich and possessing everything (2 Cor. 6:10).

Paul also experienced the joy beyond understanding, which did not depend on external circumstances when he wrote his Epistle to the Philippians. Probably in his cell he remembered about the first imprisonment in the jail of Philippi, when after he and his companion Silas were beaten with rods, were immobilized with his feet in the stocks, but they didn’t lament, instead they were praying and singing hymns to God. It was a joy of the Holy Spirit which Paul and Silas received to be able to sing praise God in the underground prison in Philippi (Acts 16:22-25). The Holy Spirit sustains Christians in the most difficult circumstances and gives a special joy, it is a joy that erupts into a full joy and praise toward God even in the midst of persecution and suffering.[1]

After more than ten years from the experience from the prison at Philippi, Paul wrote the Epistle to the Philippians from another prison, this time in Rome.[2] Alec Motyer shares the same perspective with F. F. Bruce “without claiming any ultimate certainty in the matter, Rome will be assumed to be the place of imprisonment referred to in Phil. 1:13.”[3] Even though Paul was in jail, imprisoned for the Gospel, he found the strength to encourage Christians to rejoice always (Philippians 3:1, 4:4). He put the same emphasis on the relationship between all endurance, patience and joy in the letter to the Colossians (Col. 1:11) while he says explicitly that “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake” (Col.1:24).

The Apostle Peter referred to a kind of Christian joy “unspeakable and full of glory” in the midst of trials, a joy that is based on the promise of the “salvation of souls” (I Pet. 1:8-9). In the same letter he put together in a direct link the mockery from the unsaved with happiness of Holy Spirit’s presence in their lives: “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you “(1 Peter 4:14).

Joy beyond understanding manifested in suffering.

Joy beyond understanding was experienced during the period of 45 years of the Communist regime in Romania by some Christians when they suffered persecution for their passion for the Gospel, for their desire to distribute Bibles in a clandestine manner. In spite of their suffering in prisons they were not intimidated by the Communist political regime, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “A miraculous power dwells in sufferings of disciples.”[4]

Joy in suffering is as difficult to understand as it is to explain

Evangelical theologian Joseph Ton, who wrote a thesis titled “Suffering, martyrdom and reward in heaven”, said that usually suffering and finally the martyrdom cause pain and fear; in anticipation of these great troubles people are despair and discouraged. According that someone to have joy in these circumstances which normally kills joy, means that those people really have very serious reasons for that.[5] Stanley Horton pointed out that besides that the Holy Spirit gives us power to bring salvation to the end, He also gives us joy and power to praise God even in the midst of persecution and suffering.[6] The Christian community has experienced suffering and persecution for Christ’s sake because “The Spirit does not form a community of triumph without scars, but rather a community of transformation, of forgiveness, of the healing of memories.”[7]

The Holy Spirit is the one who offers courage to Christians who faithfully witness their faith in Christ. Holy Spirit bring consolation in suffering, hope and also encouragement toward a bold confession.

Joy beyond understanding of Christians during the Communist regime in Romania

In former Communist countries, many Christians imprisoned for their faith confessed they felt their deepest joy in prison and in persecution. Romania, the country where I am from, was 45 years under the Communist regime and many Christians were imprisoned for their faith. I will highlight some of these heroes of the faith who have become models for us today: the reformed pastor Richard Wurmbrand, the Orthodox monk and writer Nicolae Steinhardt and the Pentecostal believer Constantin Caraman.

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) was born to a Jewish family but later he became a Christian and a Lutheran pastor who spent 14 years in prison (three years he in isolation) because he had the courage to face an atheist regime. He was a missionary, but one in chains, his field of work was between the thick walls of the prisons, as he said, an antechamber of hell from where he lead prisoners of different ages and social levels, including guards, to faith in Christ. Although he was alone in the cell, when other prisoners would have lost their mind, though he was hungry and experienced the cold of his cell, he received power to dance with joy every night because he experienced the closeness to God. He said that sometimes he was so full of joy that he felt that if he does not express the joy soon he will explode. He wrote his experiences during his imprisonment in his book With God in the Underground. When he was tortured by his cell mates he did not denounce them nor did he quit proclaiming his testimony. Here is how he presented part of this experience in the forward of his book: “The years of prison seems were not so long, (he was imprisoned fourteen years!) because, alone in my cell, I discovered that there is joy in the Lord: a deep, great ecstasy of happiness, unparalleled in the world. And when I came out of prison I was like a man who came down from the mountain, where eyes were swept away with the peace and beauty of the whole land, to return to the plains.”[8]

Wurmbrand filled a great joy to suffer for Christ, he says that “beyond faith and love, there is joy in the Lord: A great deep happiness.”[9]

In his memories from prison, Wurmbrand spoke both about physical suffering and weakness due to detention and about the joy beyond understanding, a joy of the Holy Spirit: “We were terribly hungry … we were thin like skeletons. The prayer Our Father was too long for us. We could not concentrate enough to say it. My prayer was repeated again and again, I love you Jesus. Then one day I received a wonderful response from Jesus: Do you love me? Now I’ll show you how I love you. Immediately I felt a burning flame in my heart like sunshine (…) I met the love of Him who gave his life on the Cross for all of us.”[10]

When Wurmbrand was abandoned in the cell where the dying prisoners were left to die due to physical exhaustion and lack of food (they receive only a slice of bread per week), though he was a Lutheran pastor he had forgotten even who Luther was, being so close to death he felt the presence of God so close and then he felt a great joy and a profound jubilation in this room of the dying.

Richard Wurmbrand’s spirit of gratefulness to God is amazing. He found a reason for gratefulness in prison for his existence although he endured much physical suffering; he thanked God that even in pain he exists. Remembering his imprisonment period he wrote: “I thank God that I exist! (…) I emerged alive from nothingness! How grateful we should be to that God and how we should love him with all our hearts because we exist here! In the darkest prison, I was there! Exist! I was beaten, but I was existing! We were hungry, but I was existing! I had the hope in God because he provided me with this gift, the gift to exist.”[11]

Wurmbrand’s joy beyond understanding in suffering is contagious, it gave him power to endure injustice and also inspire us in the present because it is a lesson of life.

Nicolae Steinhardt (1912 – 1989) was also born to a Jewish family and he was also a writer and journalist. Steinhardt was thrown into prison during the 1960s for political reasons because he refused to denounce his writer friends to the Communist leaders (he was released in August 1964). He did not know that in that hostile and unwelcoming place he would experience the greatest joy in his life, a joy beyond understanding. There are two special instances when he felt that supernatural joy: when he was baptized and when he had a special vision in his cell.

The experience of baptism in the prison of Jilava, in cell 18, on March 15, 1960, was a great joy for Nicolae Steinhardt. He wrote in his beautiful journal, The Journal of Happiness, his personal experience of clandestine baptism. Although the baptism as a liturgical act was forbidden in prison, the orthodox priest called Mina, took advantage of noise when the prisoners ended their walk through the prison yard and reentered into their cells, took water in a pot, and together with two Catholic priests and a prisoner as a godfather approached Steinhardt, spoke the words of the rite “in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” and then poured water on the head and shoulders of prisoner. At that time an unimaginable joy filled the heart and entire being of Steinhardt, “the baptism scene is the fundamental source of happiness that will mark not only his existence but also his work.”[12] Steinhardt expressed that joy flooded his being: “upon me there is in every moment hurrying more frequent assaults of happiness (…) it is true that baptism is a sacrament. Otherwise the happiness that surrounds me, that dress me, beat me, could not be so unbelievably beautiful and full.”[13]

Steinhardt remembers in his journal that one night after much suffering and sleepless he was seized by a divine presence, he perceived a bright light and heard in his mind the words I Am then he felt a very deep happiness, this is what he wrote: “Above all I’m happy, happy, happy … happiness not only continued but also increased … cascading down on me like that avalanche – antigravity lifts me … softly, swaying me – and finally replaced me bluntly.”[14] Steinhardt joy confirmed again that the real joy is not depending of external environment or material possession but by an open heart toward God, an availability to be ready to suffer for a noble cause.

The third person who in prison felt the joy beyond understanding was Constantin Caraman (1912 – 2001). He graduated in 1935, from The Commercial Academy in Bucharest, he was an intellectual which spoke fluently four languages French, English, Italian and German. Caraman’s first spiritual experience was while he walked one evening on the seashore of the Black Sea as he enjoyed of the waves, he felt a strong desire to pray, he bowed his knees, he lifted his arms to heaven and a profound peace and joy took hold his heart.[15] Caraman was a gentle spirit, a tender heart, a man with great desire to share the Gospel and above all a brave believer hunted by the security of Romania because he distributed Bibles and Christian literature when that activity was forbidden.

Caraman was the most notably Pentecostal believer who suffered under the communist regime in Romania[16] he did not die as a martyr but all his life was a life of martyrdom.[17] Since his conversion in 1936, until the fall of Communism in 1989, Caraman suffered persecution, he was “arrested, beaten, imprisoned and threatened with death because he understood that he endure all of these difficulties for Christ’s church.”[18] When he had the chance to leave his country he refused to do so because he understood that his calling is to be a missionary in his own country, not abroad.

His first contact with prison was during the year of 1945, when he helped other Christians to distribute Bibles, than he started to preach openly in the town of Timisoara. The police arrested him but released him shortly. He was chased by security and arrested directly from his work, first imprisonment was from 3rd of July 1951 until 25 of July 1952.

During his imprisonment he was sent to work together with other prisoners as slaves at hard work digging for the navigable channel Danube – Black Sea, a long channel of about 45 miles where thousands of people died during that hard work. His family did not have any kind of news from Caraman for a few months, until January 1952 when he had the chance to write a letter to them.

The second difficult time for Caraman started during the year 1963, when the officer who interrogated him tried to convince Caraman to renounce his Christian faith but without success. He was judged on 7th January 1963 and was sentenced to four years in prison, even his family asked pardon for him because he was suffering from a duodenal ulcer disease. The leaders of the Communists placed in the same cell with Caraman their man to watch and spy on him, but even that man said about Caraman that “he counts the imprisonment as a great joy and as opportunity to become strong in faith, to check his trust in Jesus. He is not worried or bitter because he is in prison, because he says that outside there is not liberty.”[19] This characterization is important because it is not made by a friend, but by a member of the security who noticed the brave attitude of a real Christian who suffer for a good cause.

Caraman was released from prison sometime between 24-30 July 1964, when the government issued a decree of pardon for those who were imprisoned because of religious issues.

Caraman’s third imprisonment started during the year of 1971, because he did not stop his work of distributing Bibles, to teach for underground Christians and to baptize people. He was sentenced for six months being released from prison in February 1972.

The Department of Religion, was the political department of Communist party, had the responsibility to watch and to restrict the autonomy of the church and to control and to limit the influence the church in society. During the years of 70’s, the leaders of that Department proposed to Caraman to be the President of Pentecostal Union hoping that Caraman would be won to their side and so he would renounce the distribution of Bibles and Christian literature in clandestine, but without success.[20] He even refused to leave the country when he was invited to, because he was convinced that his mission was to distribute Bibles in a Communist country, to translate Christian literature for people and to lead underground Bible studies for small groups.

The fourth imprisonment was during the year of 1977, when Caraman was one of six Evangelical leaders who signed the document “The New Protestant Religion and Human Rights” which was broadcast on Radio Free Europe in Germany. The document expressed the oppression against the Christians in Romania, then Caraman was arrested again on the 3rd of April 1977, investigated by the Security for about six months, than released because of the protest of Western-European political leaders. During the year of 1989, the year when the Revolution burst forth in Romania, Caraman was investigated because he organized underground Bible studies for small groups.

Caraman says that he felt the greatest joy, or a joy beyond understanding when he risked his liberty and freedom distributing Bibles and Christian literature in a clandestine manner. When he encouraged a fellow Christian, Ioan Dinică to be involved in transporting a printing machine, he says that for such activity he will be happy to suffer three years in prison.[21] Caraman says: “I had a childlike joy when the opportunity arose to undertake a dangerous action. We have a saying: Now I feel that I live”. I knew that I am doing a work for the Creator, even though people condemned me.”[22] Also, he said that the best days, the glorious and golden days were when he suffered for Christ, because he knew that God did not condemned him, in spite of the Communists that condemned him, because what he did it for God’s sake and glory. He says that received power to suffer because he knew that Christ was in his heart and nothing happens in his life without God’s permission.[23]

Caraman, as well as Wurmbrand and Steinhardt through their experiences have proved that there can be a joy beyond understanding even in suffering. Detention in a Communist prisons for them was like the fire that purifies and brings out the best in human hearts.

Yes, there can be a joy beyond understanding, a joy which come from the Holy Spirit who comforts and brings hope during the most difficult times in our lives.

Joy beyond understanding manifested in exuberant worship

From the Pentecostal perspective (I am a Pentecostal pastor), the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people is comprehensive, continuous and profound in the same time. As professor Amos Yong said of the Holy Spirit that he “enables missionaries to brave excursion into strange places, emboldens them to share the Good News of Christ in situations in which they might otherwise choose to be silent…provide supernatural insight and knowledge that leads to precise, purposeful and meaningful evangelistic activity…heals those who are physically, psychologically or otherwise afflicted…sustains missionaries and evangelists amidst their challenging circumstances…”[24]

Christian worship is more than a Christian practice, it is a liturgical act practiced in all Christian churches and branches. During the last decade, the phrase “Praise and Worship” became so well known that it looks there is nothing new we can say about this topic.

The worship service is a special place and time of the fellowship of Christian believers with God is “the place where people seek the presence of God and from which other kinds of encounters are experienced…where the glory of the Lord is revealed in power and people are transformed for the sake of Kingdom of God.”[25]

Worship is an complex act of recognizing the spiritual sovereignty of God in the Christian life that can take a variety of meanings and forms “ranging from indicating solely the corporate singing that happens in a service, praise, intercessory prayers, preaching, communion and ministry offered to the sick.”[26]

Christian worship is a part of Christian spirituality and its variety can be observed both in historical churches as well as in the Protestant and Evangelical churches. The priest’s liturgy of the Orthodox and Catholic priests, is an worship act based on old historical tradition, the Evangelical worship includes personal and corporate prayer, songs, hymns and testimonies and all of these blended with a deep conviction of presence of God in midst of Christians. Any kind of church, regardless if it is small or large, made by intellectual or illiterate people, includes in its expression the practice of worship. Prayer and worship are a kind of spiritual twins in Pentecostal congregations. As Amos Yong said “If prayer manifests the affections of human heart in longing for their Creator, then praise and worship unfold the congregational or corporate affections of the church, understood according with the New Testament metaphor as the “Bride of Christ”, for their groom.[27]

The expression of worship of Pentecostal Christian in Romania is by songs, by corporative prayers when they express their gratitude and praise to God, all together at the same time. By songs, as part of worship, Christians express their gratitude and joy toward God for his mercy and blessings. During the worship in Pentecostal communities there are spiritual manifestations by means of gifts which are understood to be “capacities and events through which God encounters individuals and worshipping congregation by means of his Spirit.”[28] According with Jesus teaching, true worship is in Spirit and truth (John 4), it is not about a “religious feeling”, which can be present in worship, but about a mode of desire for God.[29]

The songs which the Pentecostals sing express joy in the Spirit, hope, praise or encouragement for a victorious life; The worship songs are addressed directly to Jesus and to God, they are also songs of glory which relate the transcendent God to the worshipping congregation and celebrate the encounter of such transcendence in an immediate way[30].

During the Communist regime in Romania many songs expressing joy, hope, faith in Jesus, the call to spiritual warfare was forbidden to be sung and have never been published in editions of songs books that followed.

Here it is an example of such banned songs for maybe 20 years because it expressed the joy or the mobilization for spiritual battle:

There is a joy who reigns
Without shade, without cloud
What forever lasts
As last His giver.
What a joy I found in Jesus,
Leaning on his eternal arm
What happiness, what peace I found,
In my journey to Canaan!

There to our dear Lord
There are endless joy,
Which saints will inherit
When they arrive there.

When the fight will end, with Him I will be,
He will comfort me, wiping my tears
I sit at His right hand, giving me a crown
And so with him forever, I will enjoy.

Up in heaven is great joy
When a sinner is brought
Out of darkness and lethargy,
To serve Lord Jesus.

These songs were banned because carry with them hope in eternal life, encouragement, mobilization and joy when somebody gave him or her life to Jesus. Very often when Pentecostal Christians sang this kind of song they expressed a joy beyond understanding, a very deep touch of Holy Spirit, they erupted in tears, they lifted their arms toward heaven, they forget about their needs and oppression and were filled with the supernatural presence and joy of Holy Spirit. This encounter with the supernatural provides hope and joy, “The experience of believers who had explained their encounter with the Spirit in terms of breath, wind or rivers was then encapsulated in songs that used the same imagery, these songs becoming the ongoing vehicle for believers to explain their experiences.[31]

The spirit of believers was overwhelmed with the spiritual presence because “although distinctly different in origin, destiny and magnitude, the human spirit and the Divine Spirit are made for each other, according to a rationality ultimately designed to replicate the relationality of the divine and the human in the person of Jesus Christ”[32]

Together with songs, the prayer as unity of desires toward God, invoking his presence and glorify his majesty, plays an important role in Pentecostal worship. The Romanian Pentecostal prays all together at the same time knowing that God is able to listen them and also realizing that each of them has some personal need to share with God in prayers. During the prayer time sometimes are exercised the spiritual gifts, especially prophecy, speaking in tongues, and also some are baptized or filled with the Holy Spirit. All this openness toward spirituality, toward God as almighty Father brings joy beyond understanding in Pentecostal hearts.

Prayer is the expression of personal states of joy and dependency upon the Divine, it is the frame of intercession for others and wonderful opportunity to praise God. According to Paul’s teaching believers pray with mind and with spirit, they sing with the mind and also the spirit (I Cor. 14:15).

Pentecostal Christians, in their spirituality, put emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, which according with their theology denotes “a post-conversion occasion when someone is overwhelmed by the presence of the Holy Spirit and evidences that empowerment by speaking in tongues.”[33] The Holy Spirit baptism is a personal spiritual experience which occurred “as moments of koinonia and a fresh committed to the righteousness of God downing in the world across gulfs of prejudice, fear and hurt.”[34] When Christians are aware of the immanent presence of the Holy Spirit, when they experience his spiritual presence and touch, they find an incommensurable joy, a joy beyond understanding brought in their hearts by the Spirit himself.

During the worship time there can be spiritual manifestation of the presence the Holy Spirit by prophecy which is “regarded as a Spirit-inspired message directed to the congregation for the purpose of insight and edification, although occasionally containing predictive elements”[35] it is “a divinely inspired message that is articulated in human words.”[36]

Finally, the personal testimonies which aim to lift God s presence, power and wisdom in midst of congregation, play an important role in the Pentecostal tradition. I can say that the testimonies precede and provoke the worship since its function is to relate to the “cloud of witnesses”, to reveal the unity within the Body of Christ, opening ways for members to worship God in songs or by clapping and also encouraging those listening to be stronger in their faith.[37]

The Fulfillment and Purpose of Joy Beyond Understanding

The joy beyond understanding expressed in suffering and exuberant worship finds true fulfillment when it flows toward other people. Joy is a personal feeling, is a state of exaltation and profound emotion that is personal, is visible on the face of those who experience it, but then overflow for the benefit of others, it embodies and fulfills in the care and empathy for others.

The purpose of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in various ways, is not just for Christians to have a “good time”, it is much more to empower, “to guide and to transform the individuals in community so that the Pentecostal community can faithfully follow the Lord Jesus.”[38]

One way to express this joy beyond understanding is to help those around us and to bring personal witness to one another. Joy in worship, especially after the baptism in the Holy Spirit obviously leads to a desire to witness God’s plan of salvation for the salvation of those who did not gave their lives to God, as Frank Macchia said: “We are baptized in the Spirit so as to become living witnesses of Christ in the world.”[39]

The calling of those which experienced the touching of God in their hearts is to be engaged in social and evangelical mission, they cannot be static but, “always on the move, never satisfied and complacent, always engaged in the transformation of individuals and society.”[40]

Joy beyond understanding looks for righteous ways to help others, just as did Richard Wurmbrand, Nicolae Steinhardt or Constantin Caraman after experiencing this kind of joy they forgot their personal needs and were willing to help other prisoners. Aid in these circumstances is disinterested, does not seek personal benefits but it’s purpose is twofold: for helping those in need and for exaltation of God.

The Holy Spirit is the one who encourages believers to intervene to help the needy, Holy Spirit does not manifest only in supernatural powers and mighty works, but also in “feeding of the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the orphaned, and ministering to the abandoned, oppressed, or marginalized of the world.”[41]

So, when Christians engage in mission, “they join in the mission of the Spirit to help a person or group of people to begin or to progress in their participation in the Spirit of Pentecost and the fellowship of the Trinitarian God.”[42]

Just as after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost believers became more sensitive to the needy and were actively involved in solving social problems, also Christians today who have come to know the joy of the Holy Spirit beyond understanding cannot stay indifferent but actively involved in the relief of suffering of humanity.

PR

Originally published on the Pneuma Foundation (parent organization of PneumaReview.com) website. Later added to the Summer 2022 issue.

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Editor’s note: The name, Richard Wurbrand, has been changed to the familiar Richard Wurmbrand for the sake of English readers.