“Joy to the world! The Lord is come!” Isaac Watts’s glorious lyric matched with one of Georg Frideric Handel’s best melodies has long been one of the great anthems of the Christmas season.
Watts rhapsodizes on the announcement of the angels to the shepherds: “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:10–11).
Christian parents, Sunday school teachers, and other concerned folk take pains throughout December to focus children’s attention on Jesus: “the reason for the season.” And when it comes to contemplating the theme of joy during Advent, those concerned folk are exactly right to do so.
It is spiritually crucial for us to distinguish between “the joy of Christmas” and the joy hymned by Watts and first announced by the angels. The joy of Christmas can be almost anything you like—literally, anything you like.
Gifts? Check. Feasting? Check. Partying? Check. Good feelings? Check.
Lights? Check. Decorations? Check. Dress-up clothes? Check. Ugly sweaters? Check.
Ancient tradition? Check. Rich symbolism? Check. Family fun? Check. Good memories? Check.
Music? Check. Dancing? Check. Church services? Check. Movies? Check.
Love? Check. Peace? Check. Kindness? Check. Forgiveness? Check.
Romance? Check. Reconciliation? Check. Reunion? Check. Revenge? Check (at least, according to the Grinch).
Despite all the ways Christmas can indeed be blue, there is also a lot to enjoy. But precisely none of these is the joy themed in Advent.
The great Jewish leader Nehemiah, centuries before Jesus’ birth, put things exactly right on a different holy day, a different holiday. The people of God had gathered to hear the scripture in the capital city they were rebuilding after the exile. As they listened, they broke into tears as God’s Word pierced their hearts.
Nehemiah, however, reframed the situation: “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of Yhwh is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
The joy of Yhwh is your strength. There is no better verse to take quite literally than this one.
When I was a well-churched kid, I wondered how the joy God gave was somehow different than the joy I got from, say, playing hockey or playing the trumpet or playing a game. Was the joy of the Lord some deep spiritual emotion currently beyond my adolescent capacities? A mystic mood to which I could only aspire?
Later, I came to learn that the English word “enjoy” means both “take pleasure in” (our usual definition) and the more basic idea of “have the experience of.” And this double meaning is key to the joy of Advent.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism, one of the great teaching aids in the history of the church, starts like this:
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
The chief purpose and destiny, the chief telos, of the human being is to glorify God—we are God’s image, made to extend godly goodness in the world, and thus we glorify God—and to experience/delight in him forever.
The delight is not separate from God, as a kind of feeling he sends our way like a generous relative mailing us a Christmas gift. The enjoyment of God is in the experience of God.
The “joy of Yhwh” is Yhwh!
Those who write about joy consistently distinguish it from happiness. The latter, it is commonly understood, is a fleeting response to stimuli. I pass a tough test or I eat a good sandwich or I hear a catchy song and I therefore feel happy.
Joy, we are told, is a deeper, constant thing. But I never understood quite what those people were talking about until I realized that this joy comes from Jesus in the form of (not to put too fine a point on it) Jesus. The company of Jesus in the Spirit whom the Father sent in his name—so the Holy Spirit is indeed “the Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 6:7; Philippians 1:19)—delights me. His being present to me is indeed his present to me.
The Bible has dozens of mentions of rejoicing, and the vast majority have to do with the people of God rejoicing in the presence of God and God’s mighty works on their behalf. Paul himself exhorts his flocks to rejoice in the Lord—a phrase he uses no fewer than three times in a single epistle (Philippians).
Think of how you feel when sitting in the same room as a close friend or a beloved family member. Their just being there simply makes you feel joy.
And there’s nothing simple about it. All the years of experiences with them—all the fun you have had together, all the challenges you have faced together, all the arguments you have resolved together, all the affirmations you have exchanged together—have sedimented into deep, dense delight in their sheer presence: joy.
The angels tell the shepherds something different than much of what the priest Zechariah and the virgin Mary celebrated in their songs earlier in Luke’s gospel: all that God would do for his people in the coming of the Messiah. The angels shrink the focus of joy down to its true centre, not what God would do, but . . . God: “Today . . . a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”
If we don’t cultivate a sense of God’s presence during Advent and then the following twelve days of Christmas, if we don’t keep realizing God is right here right now—in the kitchen or in church or when we wrap presents or when we eat Christmas dinner—we will have to settle for the mere joy of Christmas. That will be more or less pleasant enough, but what a loss—
—like settling for “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” with its celebration of stores and gifts and snow and decorations, instead of Watts’s and Handel’s “Joy to the World,” with its celebration of . . . the Lord.
Another Christmas? For most of us, at least, it’s worth making the customary efforts to enjoy. Get the lights up, the wreath on the door, the cookies in the oven, the gifts under the tree, and some music on the speakers.
But the joy of the Lord coming to earth to save us all—and remain with us forever?
Let heaven and nature sing!
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