Advent Devotional #7: Joy
“Is God my glory, my delight, and my source of joy?”
by Rev. James A. Harnish from Almost Christmas: Devotions for the Season
Watch for it along the way to Christmas. It may take you by surprise. It’s easily missed amid the delightful chaos and beautiful clutter of the season. It’s the joy of anticipation. It’s the joy we experience when we find the perfect gifts for people we love, and anticipate the look of surprise on their faces when they open them on Christmas morning. It’s the joy of sending Christmas cards and imagining the way people will feel when they receive them. It’s the joy we feel in anticipation of a greater joy to come; the joy of hoping for a gift we have yet to receive. Biblically, it’s the joy of anticipating that joy-soaked day when God’s kingdom comes and God’s will is fully done on earth as it became flesh in Jesus and is already fulfilled in heaven.
I think that’s what John Wesley had in mind when he said that being “altogether Christians” incudes “rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.” He borrowed that phrase from Paul, who commands us to “rejoice in hope” (Romans 12:12 NRSV). We are encouraged to experience joy not merely in the memory of “Christmas Past,” but in assurance of “Christmas Yet to Come.”
When C.S. Lewis told the story of his journey from arid agnosticism into vibrant faith, he described it as his longing for and experience of Joy, a word he consistently capitalized. He called Joy “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” He said that the one and only characteristic that Joy has in common with happiness or pleasure is that “anyone who has experienced it will want it again.” The difference is that happiness and pleasure often depend on our circumstances and are largely within our power to create or control, but Joy is always an undeserved gift from God. That’s why he titled his spiritual autobiography Surprised by Joy.
Paul’s command to “rejoice in hope” is set in the context of his description of specific behaviors that shape our lives around the hope we share. This joy is not simply an internal emotion. It is joy that becomes flesh in the way we live. It enables us to live now in ways that are consistent with the future for which we hope. It is the joy we saw in Archbishop Desmond Tutu. During the darkest days of the struggle against apartheid, his courageous leadership was consistently infused with irrepressible joy in the assurance that God’s promise of freedom would one day be fulfilled. It was the joy of anticipation of what was yet to come.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer described the same joy in his last letter to his former students before he was imprisoned. He fearlessly named the suffering they were facing, but he affirmed that “joy abides with God, and it comes down from God and embraces spirit, soul, and body; and where this joy has seized a person, there it spreads, there it carries one away, there it bursts open closed doors.”
Watch for joy along the way to Christmas and along the journey from being “almost” to “altogether” Christian. It make come when you least expect it. It’s the joy that rejoices in the hope of what is yet to come.
Reflection Questions:
What is your definition of joy?
Where in your life do you find joy? Where do you miss it?
Is God your source of joy?