In essence, Christian joy is the spiritual sharing in the unfathomable joy, both divine and human, which is in the heart of Jesus Christ glorified. As soon as God the Father begins to manifest in history the mystery of His will according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time,[¹²] this joy is mysteriously announced in the midst of the People of God, before its identity has been unveiled.

Thus Abraham, our father, who was set apart for the future accomplishment of the Promise, and who hoped against all hope, receives when his son Isaac is born the prophetic first fruits of this joy.[¹³] This joy becomes transfigured through a trial touching death, when this only son is restored to him alive, a prefiguring of the resurrection of the one who was to come: the only Son of God promised for the redeeming sacrifice. Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing the Day of Christ, the Day of Salvation: he "saw it and was glad."[¹⁴]

The joy of salvation then increases and is transmitted throughout the prophetic history of ancient Israel. It persists and is unfailingly reborn in the course of tragic trials due to the culpable infidelities of the chosen people and to the external persecutions which try to detach them from their God. This joy, ever threatened and springing up again, is proper to the people born of Abraham.

It is always a question of an uplifting experience of liberation and restoration (at least foretold), having its origin in the merciful love of God for His beloved people, on whose behalf He accomplishes, by pure grace and miraculous power, the promises of the Covenant. Such is the joy of the Mosaic Passover, which happened as the prefiguring of the eschatological liberation which would be wrought by Jesus Christ in the paschal context of the new and eternal Covenant. It is a question also of the real joy repeatedly hymned by the Psalms -- the joy of living with God and for God. It is a question finally and above all of the glorious and supernatural joy, prophesied for the new Jerusalem redeemed from the exile and loved with a mystical love by God Himself.

The ultimate meaning of this unheard-of outpouring of redemptive love will only appear at the time of the new Pasch and new Exodus. At that time the People of God will be led, in the death and resurrection of the Suffering Servant, from this world to the Father, from the figurative Jerusalem of here below to the Jerusalem above: "Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, with no one passing through, I will make you majestic for ever, a joy from age to age.... For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you."[¹⁵]