Joy?

I received a Christmas card with just one word embossed on it in bold capital letters—JOY. It’s certainly a feeling we associate with this Advent/Christmas season. But in reality the expectation that we ought to feel joyful makes lots of us nervous and even depressed at this time of year. Maybe life isn’t going so well, or we’ve experienced some great loss. What’s to be joyful about?

If you look at arc of Christ’s life, you will see that the joy proclaimed at Christmas does not eradicate the pain. His path to joy leads past the cross.

In our lives too, the path to joy often leads through pain. Not because pain is somehow good, but because it’s an inevitable part of living in a broken world. Gospel joy is for those who have faced the brokenness. Only those who weep earn the right to joy. Joy is not a cover-up; it’s an uncovering that opens us up to the deeper well of life.

When children wake up in the middle of the night because of a thunderclap or a nightmare, they cry out, “Mommy, Daddy!” Good parents typically respond to this cry by taking the child in their arms and softly saying, “It's all right, it's all right.” That’s what we say to our kids.

“It’s all right” is either a grand lie or the dearest of all truths.

God, who loved the world so much that he sent his Son to redeem us, takes us in his arms and says, “It's all right; everything will be all right.” And we know it’s not a lie because Christ lived it, and he lives today to assure our hearts by his Holy Spirit that it’s true.

In the Bible, joy is not a feeling we have now and then. It’s a choice we make, a stance we take. If God’s love and salvation in Jesus Christ is the ultimate reality of the universe, then no matter how we feel at the moment or what we’re facing, we can dance every day to the rhythm of heavenly joy.