Finding Joy in this "Joyous Season"

Third Sunday of Advent

Luke 1:39-45 Rev. Todd B. Freeman

Bethany Presbyterian Church, Dallas December 14, 2003

About 32 years ago now, when I was in high school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, our church Youth Group had a program that dealt with joy and happiness. I only remember one thing about that program, but I remember it very well. The adult leader suggested that there was a difference between being happy and being filled with joy.

I had a hard time understanding the difference between the two, especially when it was stated that only Christians - those who knew Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior - ever truly experienced joy. Perhaps as a foreshadowing of my future theologically progressive self, I approached the leader after the program and seriously questioned whether only Christians ever experienced the emotion of joy.

That dilemma stuck with me for years to come. I would contend today that saying only Christians experience true joy is an exclusive and arrogant claim. However, I have come to understand the psychological and emotional differences between joy and happiness.

The sense of joy is a theme that runs throughout all three of today's biblical texts. And that joy does indeed come from a relationship with God. The traditional focus of the third candle of the Advent wreath is also that of joy.

If joy is a somewhat difficult concept to wrap your mind around, then perhaps it's easier to understand its opposite. Literature often provides a great source for finding examples. For instance, a demonstration of the opposite of joy - especially as it pertains to the season of Christmas - is very well exhibited by the following two literary characters: Dr. Suess' Grinch who Stole Christmas , and Charles Dickens' Ebenezar Scrooge from A Christmas Carol .

And it's not hard to notice that far too many people live with a deep-seated Grinch-like, humbug attitude - and often at Christmastime. Studies reveal, in fact, that it's even more problematic than that, that during the Christmas season cases of serious depression and even suicide rise sharply. You may know someone, perhaps even yourself, who has an especially difficult time during this season. This being the case, I think it is imperative, from a pastoral perspective, that we keep ourselves open and sensitive to others.

Many of us in this very congregation, for instance, may find ourselves trapped in an emotional pressure cooker during this time of year. We are bombarded, especially by Christmas cards, that tell us that this is a "Joyous Season." Yet not everyone is filled with this sense of "comfort and joy." There are indeed serious life situations that are made even worse when it seems like everyone else is having such a joyous, good time.

Like those who find themselves unemployed, those who can't afford gifts and presents, those who are homeless and hungry and suffering, those who are grieving, those who are lonely, and those who are ill, especially the terminally ill.

Living and ministering in this Oak Lawn neighborhood, for example, I am especially aware of those who suffer from isolation. Isolation from families that don't welcome them for being who they are, or for not welcoming the partners they love. The holidays are also especially difficult for those who have lost loved ones.

Yet we are made to feel that we ought to be happy, that anyone who isn't happy at this time of year is truly miserable.

The Rev. Peter Gomes, chaplain at Harvard University, in a sermon entitled "Humbug and the Christian Hope" adds:

We compound our problem by mixing this all up with the church of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith, thinking somehow that a whiff of incense on Christmas Eve or the invocation of the manger scene with its pious simplicities will somehow make it all right. Of all the humbugs about, this one is the most grievous.

The Christian faith is not the sugar-coated pill we swallow at Christmas to make us feel better and the world look better.

Indeed, the church has a medicine for this condition, a cure and corrective for this acute case of humbug; it comes in the form of this Holy Season of Advent and in the substance of what is called Christian Hope.

Gomes summarizes what he means by Christian hope with this wonderful statement. "The Christian hope is based upon the assurance that the God who formed us out of God's love and [dwells among and within us] will not abandon us in that future into which God calls us." It is this assurance of God's constant presence, I believe, that transforms humbug and despair into joy.

If hope is indeed the root of joy, which I believe it is, then this morning's stunning announcement of the capture of Saddam Hussein is a great source of hope and joy for the people of Iraq. And the world should embrace this hope for a new way of life for the Iraqi people and the Middle East.

The cover article of the December 2000 issue of Presbyterians Today was entitled, "JOY: God's Unexpected Gift." It was written by Ben Campbell Johnson, a recently retired professor of evangelism and church growth and of Christian spirituality at Columbia (Presbyterian) Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia.

He begins by asking that same common question, "Why is it that even in the Advent-Christmas season of joy so many people feel flat or depressed?" He answers, in part:

After a rather long journey with Christ, I have discovered a few things it does not mean. When we are joyless it does not mean that God is displeased or angry with us. Neither does it mean God is punishing us for our sins. And, most important, feeling a lack of joy does not mean God has forsaken us.

In addressing possible contributors to joylessness he includes the following. See if any ring true for you.

False expectations.
Confusing happiness with joy.
Refusing to face our pain.
Struggling with skewed relationships.
Feeling haunted by things in our past.
Suffering from clinical depression.
Running away from conflict.

If any of these raise a red flag for you, perhaps that may help explain a lack of joy in your life.

Ben Campbell Johnson writes, "Most of these behaviors will clamp the pipeline of joy and keep it from flowing freely into our lives. A personal inventory might reveal some of these hindrances to joy."

When was the last time you sat quietly and took a personal inventory of what's going on in your life, including emotionally and spiritually? Perhaps now is a good time - for it's never too late!

I want to address one of the items in that list, which I made reference to at the beginning of this sermon: confusing happiness with joy. Gomes writes:

Joy and happiness are not the same. Happiness seems to depend on our external circumstances. If our circumstances are pleasant, our needs are met, and we have the approval of family and friends, we generally feel happy with our lives.

But joy is different. It comes from within and does not depend on our circumstances. While we may work on or even clear up some of the things that rob us of joy, we cannot create our own joy. Joy has a gift-like quality. It appears in our lives as a consequence of growth or change or a special relationship with others and especially in our relationship with God.

In contrast to happiness, joy can overflow even if we are in bad circumstances. Even in difficult and trying circumstances that could never be called happiness, joy can overflow to nurture and sustain us.

To put it another way, happiness is like a fair-weather friend who hangs around when circumstances are good but at the first sight of pain, complexity or confusion quickly departs. Joy, on the other hand, has deeper roots.

The Apostle Paul includes joy in his list of the "fruit of the Spirit," again reflecting its gift-like quality.

Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen, wrote a book in 1994 entitled, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit . Chapter 2 is simply entitled, "Joy." He remarks, "Joy is essential to spiritual life... Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can take that love away ."

Nouwen adds, " Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety, and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us."

Or as I am fond of saying, God is always close as your very next breath. Remember that when your are in need of some hope and joy.

" We do have a choice," writes Nouwen, "not so much in regard to the circumstances of our life, but in regard to the way we respond to these circumstances."

So let me close with a suggestion from Nouwen on how we can develop our capacity to choose for joy. "Maybe we could spend a moment at the end of each day and decide to remember that day - whatever may have happened - as a day to be grateful for. In doing so, we increase our heart's capacity to choose for joy. And as our hearts become more joyful, we will become, without any special effort, a source of joy for others. Just as sadness begets sadness, so joy begets joy ."

Joy is indeed contagious. Eventually even the Grinch and Ebenezar Scrooge were filled with joy because they came out of their isolation, embraced hope, and accepted the joy offered to them by others.

So this Christmas let us all choose joy! Let us share our joy with others, and let us accept the joy others have to offer us.

Amen.