Dec 10, 20244 min read

Advent Three - We are made for Joy

To claim that we are made for Joy is quite a claim at any time but especially this year when lament and weeping may seem more natural expressions of our state of mind and the state of the world. And yet it has often been so and still the faithful are reminded that joy is coming; that now is the time for rejoicing; and that we have been made for the purposes of joy. (Advent Three. Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; and Luke 3:7-18.)

You may like to read what I wrote three years ago about drawing water from the wells of salvation.

Or you may like to read the Advent study pages 22-23 on how the purpose of all this disturbance is so that we can know joy.

Advent Year C Study

In reflecting on our biblical texts this week and the sacred scripture of our lives and times, I would speculate three things. Firstly, that joy is not simply a reward for obedience and the successful completion of life tasks but something that awaits us within our relationship with the divine and neighbours and inherent in our real lives – now! I make this audacious claim with some trepidation and hesitation for I know too well how much very real suffering is in our world: the suffering of poverty and injustice; violence and indifference; illness and loss. But I also see and hear in the biblical text and in the stories of my neighbours and my own heart that while joy undoubtably waits for us in the morning, in the afterwards of struggle and life, joy also is waiting for us inside of life - even the hard and barren parts of life.

With both of the texts from the prophets there has been warnings of judgements and consequences to come (in the portion of the text before our readings) and then a reprieve that is not only a waving of punishment, well deserved, but a call to joy. And even the prophet John the Baptiser who charmingly greets the crowds as a brood of vipers seeking to avoid the wrath to come, ends up preaching the good news and exhorting them to live joyfully and generously. Joy is not so much the reward for passing a test but what is waiting for us in the midst of our circumstances and we need do no more than turn our attention from our wrong focus to the gift of God that is all around us and among us. (One way of understanding metanoia or repentance is to change our mind, our attention and intention from the wrong focus to right relationship.)

Secondly the nature of spiritual joy is not the same as personal happiness although they may at times co-incide. All of the texts this week point to communal relationships and John the Baptiser describes a restoration of our relationships with each other in terms of justice and generosity. Paul in his letter to the Philippians is advising rejoicing as an outworking of peace and prayer. This advise is in response to conflict between members of the community. So joy is not something that only flourishes where all is easy and well with us and between us but rather the claim of joy upon us calls us into working through what is conflicted and hard. Joy remembered and hoped for calls us forward and gives us the courage and the energy to work through what is not peaceful or joyous.

At this moment in history many of us may with terrible reason think joy is a long way off and postponed for this year but the memory of joy and the longing for joy again gives us courage and the determination to find joy in one another, to find joy in our tradition, and to find joy in our capacity to love and honour our neighbour. Joy in hard times is courageous and subversive and joy energises us for what is to come and the work ahead!!

And thirdly joy is part of how we grow in grace. In modern psychological parlance I would say that experiencing joy rewires us. Just as we know that trauma and suffering can change our biochemical makeup (increase our cortisol levels for example) and predispose us towards certain pessimistic world views, can increase our background experience of anxiety and despair, so too can the experience of joy rewire us for more positive perspectives and increase the good biochemicals in our system (such as dopamine). Now joy is surely more than just an alphabet soup of biochemicals but joy it seems, like love and hope and peace, is interactive and energetic. When we open our hearts and minds, our ears and our eyes, and we experience joy in our life, when we seek to bring joy to others, we not only have a moment’s relief from the hardships of life but we grow in our capacity to experience more joy, to rejoice! Indeed, John the Baptiser and Paul seem to suggest that joy is something we need to be conduits of for our neighbours, that when we live rightly, we increase joy for your community. We have a role to play.

So as people of faith let us open our hearts and minds, ears and eyes, to all that is joyous around us – small moments of appreciation and gratitude for nature, neighbours, traditions, novelty and all that delights and comforts us. Let us also commend in prayer and greetings our gratitude for one another. And let us be committed to increasing the likelihood of joy in the lives of strangers by remembering in our charitable giving the needs of children to not only eat but to play and learn, the needs of all creatures to have safe homes, and for broken lives to be invited to join in and have reasons to celebrate. May we give thanks for all that brings joy to us and let our wearied selves rest in the embrace of our Creator who made us not only to be good but to be conduits of hope, peace and joy.

Even so, come Lord Jesus the Christ, come fill us with your joy.