Advent 3: Joy

Advent is a penitential season of self examination. But that penitence isn’t intended to create despair. In fact, it is intended to clear the way for hope to take hold of us so that joy might ensue. But it’s important to understand that it’s God’s joy, and not the world’s joy that we’re seeking. The joy we experience in this world is often fleeting, and limited. But Paul’s joy springs from his recognition that Jesus isn’t just a prophet telling us about a future event, or a teacher leading us to change our hearts or attitudes; rather Jesus himself is the fulfillment of the prophets’ words in the OT. He is God come into the world to transform it and change the fate of every living thing, from death to life. And not just a good 80 something years, but a perfect eternal life.

Christ - the fulfillment of God’s promises to bring us to him - is the very hope on which Paul founds every other aspect of his life. His willingness to suffer and accept it. His willingness to prioritize proclaiming the kingdom rather than doing other things with his time, energy or money.  We see this when he’s placed under house arrest by the Romans. Rather than writing through a lens of tragedy or lament or insisting on the Romans being unfair to him, Paul turns this into an opportunity to write to his brothers and sisters in the Philippian church who are facing persecution, showing them through his actions, and telling them to stand firm in the faith.

He reminds them that they are to carry their own crosses as did Jesus, that they should not look only to their own interests but the interests of others (2:4). Don’t just love your neighbours he says, or the people you like, you must extend your good works even to your enemies so that they might see in those works, the very face of God, the love of Christ poured out through you.  

But Paul goes one step further. He doesn’t simply suggest that receiving grace should result in good works toward others. In the midst of persecution, arrest, and the threat of execution he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” (4:4). What flows from joy in knowing you are in Christ? 

Paul continues: “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” In other words, secured eternally in God you are set free not so you can run around feeling superior or being judgemental of others, but so that you might serve others. 

Rejoice. There is no need for you to control. Rejoice. There is no need to fall into despair. Rejoice for I have you and I have your loved ones. “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” The joy of being in Christ isn't fleeting happiness from good circumstances, free from suffering, illness, or loss. It is a deep, lasting delight in God found even amid suffering, rooted in faith, contentment, and God's empowering strength in Christ. 

This is the message John proclaims in the wilderness. When he is imprisoned and sends his friends to ask Jesus, “are you the Messiah,” he is not asking out of doubt, but to press his followers away from him - a man who will be beheaded by Herod - and to the one who will save him, along with all of them, to Jesus Christ that is.

So Jesus responds to John’s followers: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.“ I am the one, the Messiah, whom God’s prophets foretold. I have come to heal those who seek me. If they will not believe the words of the prophets, then I will show them by my works that all of my words are true: I have come for those who recognize they are sinners and offer themselves to be cleansed. Rejoice, God has come to claim you. Step into that reality and I will transform how you experience the entire world. Rejoice and be renewed in hope even when things are falling apart. 

GK Chesterton writes, “Joy is the uproarious labour by which all things live.” While creation has been harmed by sin, the truth behind it all is not some monster hunting us down or a hive-mind conspiracy, but instead a joy that erupts and floods through the cracks. Isaiah puts it like this:

“The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will sing for joy! Springs will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will water the wasteland. The parched ground will become a pool, and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land. Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish where desert jackals once lived." (Isa. 35. 6-7).

Chesterton continues, “There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth." Joy. Joy is God’s secret, Joy is the crocus awaiting dew in the desert, and Joy is the hidden reality that is bursting into our mediocre and sorrowful days.