estasy

The word “ecstasy” helps us to understand more fully the joy that Jesus offers. The literal meaning of the word can help to guide our thinking about joy. “Ecstasy” comes from the Greek “ekstasis,” which in turn is derived from “ek,” meaning out, and “stasis,” a state of standstill. To be ecstatic literally means to be outside of a static place. Thus, those who live ecstatic lives are always moving away from rigidly fixed situations to exploring new, unmapped dimensions of reality. Here we see the essence of joy. Joy is always new. Whereas there can be old pain, old grief, and old sorrow, there can be no old joy. Old joy is not joy! Joy is always connected with movement, renewal, rebirth, change—in short, with life. Joy is essentially ecstatic since it moves out of the place of death, which is rigid and fixed, and into the place of life which is new and surprising. “God is God not of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). There is no tinge of death in God. God is pure life. Therefore living in the house of God is living in a state of constant ecstasy, in which we always experience the joy of being alive.