Advent 4: Joy
Happiness. Excitement. Joy.
On this fourth week of Advent, all about Joy, it doesn’t seem like we really should need to tell anyone during Christmas time to be excited or joyful. Some people (ahem…Jack) have been joyfully listening to Christmas songs since right after Halloween. Being willing to listen to Christmas songs on end for months must come from a deep-seated joy. Similarly, lights on a Christmas tree or on a house don’t exactly try to “tone things down,” rather, they are meant to be the visible images of the joy that is building inside the people who put them up. Presents wrapped beneath the tree beg imagination to wonder what they may contain and the upcoming joy. Christmas parties exist because someone wants you to enter into the same joy they have in being extroverted and being with a lot of people and celebrating together! I have seen many of your kids, I have seen my kids when they were younger, begin to show physical signs of their uncontainable joy when they even talk about Christmas, and the joy they have in thinking of what is to come. Hands shake, eyes get big, speech speeds up to an incomprehensible speed. I think some of you kids might be starting to experience joy even now, thinking about Christmas presents!
Interestingly, joy sometimes springs from the experience of our expectation—the waiting and knowing something good is coming, but on the other hand, joy sometimes springs from our finally getting what we have been waiting for—the final beholding of something long awaited. It can come at both ends of the process of expectation. So much of what we just mentioned is the front end of expectation, but there are many things that come on the receiving side of expectation as well.
How many of you have special food that you prepare and eat at Christmas? It probably depends a lot on your family heritage what that special food is. For my family, it is a Scandinavian smorgasbord of meats and dips before dinner and traditional Scottish/English type food that you might expect from my side of the family (turkey, potatoes, cranberry fluff). From Katie’s side, it is a French Canadian Meat Pie. And yes, if you haven’t had meat pie, you should have that funny Thanksgiving scene with Joey from Friends in your head, “Pie Good. Meat Good!” What’s not to like about combining the two!
But isn’t it odd how we often don’t make those foods other times of the year? Our family has a song about how meat pie is only for Christmas (you should ask my kids to sing it for you after church…). Finally, receiving what you have been expecting at Christmas—the gift, the food, the party—does bring you joy in receiving it. I don’t think I would have the same joy of eating meat pie in August as I do on Christmas Day.
We seem to think about joy in a different way this time of year—during Advent, at Christmas time. That is what we saw in the videos, some of you were so gracious to make with Jack last week—ways that God has brought joy into our lives in different ways this entire year. Sometimes we may miss it in the moment, but Christmas seems to give us a place and time to think about all those wonderful gifts of God. Thank you for sharing that with us, those of you who did!
Christmas time truly seems like a moment where we are more aware of JOY in many different ways. Joy, expectation, and receiving and giving seem to go hand in hand. Joy is woven into our experience of Christmas every year in many different aspects and moments.
So much of this process of expectation, receiving, giving, and joy is true for our God as well. God had waited. God had an expectation for a particular moment. It was the same moment we were expecting and had waited for as well—Christmas. God waited patiently with humanity for thousands of years as he carefully laid his plan, showed us his character, and then chose to come to us. As Romans and Galatians say:
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
(Romans 9:22–24 ESV)
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
(Galatians 4:4–5 ESV)
God is waiting…patiently! (You hear that, children…patience in waiting! You hear that adults….patience in waiting!) And he waited patiently with many horrific sinners who would never choose to follow him nor repent. God waited patiently and in expectation, even when the waiting was very hard and very long. God waited for many years until the right time, or as Galatians says, at the “fullness of time,” that it would be right for God to send his Son.
That is what we are celebrating today, in this season, at Advent. We are celebrating the moment when, finally, God saw that it was right to come to his people. Jesus, the God-Man—God forever enjoined to humanity in the flesh—came to us that night in the manger, as a little baby. Weak, helpless, dependent. That is amazing! And that is joyful! God chose to condescend—a word that means come down and lower oneself, it is an image of posture towards others—God condescended that we might know him as his created people. That we might truly know him. And that we might know HIS hope, peace, and love.
Listen to how Paul says this in Philippians 2:
So, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
(Philippians 2:1–11 ESV)
Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, did not choose to look on us in spite when he saw us in our sad state of sin and rebellion. Rather, he emptied himself and came to serve us. What looks more like someone who has emptied themselves than a baby? What looks more like someone who came to serve than someone dying for his enemies?
In this “In Between” moment, this moment between God’s first creation and his second re-creation of all things, we live in a moment where so much of what we love about Christmas is wrapped up in Jesus himself and in his death that we might have true life again. Perfect life in the Garden of Eden. Perfect life again in the new heavens and on the new earth. Today, life springs forth from the joy of a baby born in the manger and his eventual death on the cross. A righteous life given to me and you. An atoning death that we might all be back in a relationship with God, rightly again today. All through a life begun in the manger and that went to the cross and was resurrected again in power.
When we look at the other themes of Advent, we must go from the manger through Jesus’s death to get there.
Hope. Hope embodied in the final revealing of the long-awaited promise of a seed, a descendant, a messiah, and a hope that comes from the knowledge and expectation that what we see today in part we will see fully someday again as we walk face-to-face with our God on the new earth. A hope that was only bought through the cross.
Peace. A peace found in the stillness of the stable, in a manger, and a peace in a person sweetly sleeping as embodied peace. A peace knowing that our sins are no longer accounted to us. Sins that were placed on that grown baby, Jesus, on Good Friday on a cross that we might have peace again with God.
Love. Love seen in a mother’s warm embrace that night of her miraculous baby, and love embodied in the God-Man who would grow up to love us all through the greatest sacrifice ever. Love through a perfectly righteous life for each of us. Love through death on the cross for our sins.
As we look at the Advent themes of Hope, Peace, and Love, we inevitably must go to the cross. In this moment, In Between God’s creative acts, we only find true life through another’s life, death, and ultimate resurrection. And wonders of it all, it had to be God himself. At Christmas, to truly appreciate all Jesus is for us, we must go to the cross. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
(1 Corinthians 15:19 ESV)
Meaning that if Jesus did not die, if Jesus did not raise from the dead, then we are to be pitied. If Jesus did not secure for you and me peace with God for the forgiveness of our sins, if Jesus didn’t promise hope in a life again with God and a future for us, and if Jesus didn’t bring us into love forevermore in God’s gaze, then none of this is worth it. All our worship songs, our tithing, our spending time serving one another, and this world is worthless if we don’t get to the cross and the ultimate joy that comes from knowing what Jesus accomplished for us in his life, but also and most specifically in his death and resurrection.
Christmas must lead to the cross, or we find, sadly, that the gift given to us on Christmas ends up being empty and hollow. We find true joy at Christmas, we see the gift that came that morning in the manger, and then we find out the gift ultimately is cross-shaped. What looks like a sweet baby is meant to be a sacrificial lamb, the blood of which saves us not by being on our doorposts like in the first Passover, but by covering our entire lives and all our sins.
And that gift—a baby given for sacrifice that we might be saved—is meant to be joy for us! In fact, that is our first application point this morning:
Joy is for us
That may seem odd when we think of keeping connecting Jesus’s coming with his eventual death, but that is what we are told should be our reaction. We should have Joy! Jesus is God’s gift to us to give us joy in all the things he did and gave to us. Even the angels declare this on the first Christmas morning:
And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
(Luke 2:10–11 ESV)
Good news of great joy! That is what you and I are to have when we think of Jesus born on Christmas and especially when we think of him having gone to the cross for us. This is how Paul started that section of Philippians 2 that we already read:
So, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
If we truly see and know who God is and what he has done for us, THEN we will have the same mind, the same love, and especially the same JOY that Paul has in seeing all this. Jesus condescended —he came to us—so we might find joy. Yes, Jesus is truly meant to be a gift of joy for you and me at Christmas. In everything he has done, he has done it to bring us joy.
But we might be tempted to think of God as begrudging towards us when we think of hope, peace, and love coming to us through Jesus, most clearly through Christmas, but leading through the cross. As though God looked upon you and me, upon his children across time and all of humanity and thought, “Well, if I must, I must,” and like a parent painfully parting with their money for Christmas gifts, God decides he might as well come to earth so we can be saved. I guess. If he has to. It's odd, but if we are honest, we might live with at least a small part of us that suspects God really isn’t happy with us because of how much we cost him.
But that is not at all how God came that Christmas morning. Joy is even bigger than just a gift for you and me. In fact:
Joy is for us because JOY is for us.
That is a funny statement, but it is true. Joy, the gift we receive is ultimately for us to receive because JOY, God himself, the very embodiment of Joy in all ways, has chosen to be FOR us—for us and our future, our life, and our good in every way. We receive joy today in Jesus because Jesus—joy himself—has come to us in joy and for our joy. With the full view of all of history before him, knowing exactly what it would mean for him, the Son of God enfolded himself to humanity that morning in a manger in JOY!
God is joy, and God is joyful when he looks at you and me and what it would take to bring us back to himself. That sounds incredible, but it is true! The writer of Hebrews says:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
(Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV)
Jesus came and went to the cross not under compulsion but because of JOY! Joy in you and me. Joy in doing the will of the Father. The Son knew before he even came to earth what it would cost—that he would have to go to the cross. And he chose to do that in JOY!
And that is because Jesus is THE embodiment of joy. If you have never thought about this, Jesus is the most joyful person you will ever know and meet. As the writer of Hebrews said at the beginning of their letter, speaking about Jesus:
You [Jesus] have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of [JOY] beyond your companions.
(Hebrews 1:9 ESV)
God anointed Jesus with the oil of joy beyond all others. Jesus found more joy in all he did than you and I will ever experience—he is JOY itself. If you think you are dishonoring God by feeling joyful at the gift of Jesus on Christmas morning, you are wrong. If you think you should walk around all the time feeling sad about what Jesus had to do for you, you are wrong. You and I are meant to see what Jesus did and know it as joy for us! That is how Jesus felt about his life and path; that is how we are to see it as well. Yes, there were hard moments in his path, just like we have hard moments, but what drove Jesus, what compelled him, what filled every member of his being on his journey—was joy! Because HE is joy for us!
Communion
We have ushers who are going to start handing out communion this morning to you from the back. When you receive your communion, please hold it for a minute.
I want us to come to communion this morning differently than we often do. Often, we come to communion realizing the amazing weight of what Jesus did for us that we might know things like hope, peace, and his love. He went to the cross to demonstrate those things for us. That is a good thing to think about and consider often. To realize the weight of our sin (as Scripture says), and to thank God for his salvation through Jesus.
But don’t you think for a moment, on Christmas, that the Son of God was born a baby begrudgingly, frustrated, or so you would grovel shamefully before him. God did everything on Christmas morning with a smile and with JOY! In John’s gospel, John quotes Jesus again and again in chapters fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, saying things like this:
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
(John 15:11 ESV)
Jesus came in joy for joy. He wants you and me to receive the joy that he has in us.
Joy is for us because JOY is for us.
This morning, if you are a Christian and put your faith in Jesus, I would invite you to take this communion with us. And take it in joy. See this morning the Joy of Jesus before you in the elements.
If you are not yet a believer in Jesus, I would love to talk to you about that after this service. Jesus came that you might know he is joyful in you! He smiles on you as you come back to him in faith in all he has done for you. He wants you to know true hope, true peace, and true love that you will find as you see what he did for you at the cross. This morning, if you don’t yet believe, you don’t need communion—a remembrance meal—rather, you need to come to Jesus the first time. If that is you, consider coming to Jesus this morning, even right now, in faith that he did everything for you in JOY that you might experience HIS joy.
Would you all stand and take communion with me?
This morning, rather than the night he was betrayed, I want you to think of Christmas. Christmas in the manger. The Son of God, Jesus, enjoined humanity that morning next to animals. God made flesh that you and I might know his joy—that we might know GOD. This is the body of Christ born that Christmas morning for you, do this in joyful remembrance of him!
Similarly, though it would cost him his life through his blood, he came that he might fulfill the new covenant and that we might again know JOY in being back in a relationship with God. The cup of Christ’s life and death wasn’t taken begrudgingly; it was grasped joyfully for you and me. So joyful that angels came and declared the amazing joy that morning to the shepherds in the fields. Do this in joyful remembrance of him!
[You may be seated.]
Joy is for us because JOY is for us.
This Christmas, what are you and I to do with this beautiful reality? Hope, peace, love, and joy came to you! When we see that Jesus is hope, peace, love, and JOY embodied and that he is for us and has given joy for us, and we put our faith in him, what then should we do?
I think this is our question this morning:
Will you be Joy for others?
Will you take the joy that came to you and take it out to others? Because that is the way joy is meant to work. Like Christmas lights on your house proclaiming your joy of the season loudly to others, joy is meant to be put out there so others can see it. Like presents under the tree, declaring your joy for others to see, wrapped up in tangible form, joy is meant to be a gift that we give away. Like every song we sing together today, joy is meant to spread.
[Invite team up. Invite ushers up with their candles.]
Usually, we light the Jesus candle on Christmas Day, but we won’t be together on Christmas morning, so we will light it today. Jesus is the embodiment of all these things. Jesus is hope for us. Jesus is peace for us. Jesus is love for us. And Jesus is joy for us. Amazingly, Jesus came TO us. God did not wait for us to come to him—that would have never happened. He chose to come to us, and he chose to come as humble as a God-Man could come. He didn’t just zap and appear one day in the temple. He didn’t come the first time riding on his horse as the great king. He came as a child. He came humbly and for us.
Will you take your hope, peace, love, and joy that you know have in Jesus to others? Like the angels that morning, you too are to proclaim, “I bring you good news of great joy.” That is what hope, peace, love, and joy are meant to do. They come to others so that it might spread.
In this moment in between, where things are hard, and we see things incompletely, I think many of us literally don’t take out the joy of the good news of Jesus Christ because we don’t believe it will have any real impact. [Light a small candle.] It seems like what we have been given through faith in Jesus is faint and flickering at best. That may be true, but God chose to use all of us, weak as we are. And what if that was the plan? What if the plan was to show what could happen when weak people trust God and condescend to one another and simply share the hope, the peace, the love, and the joy that we have been given in Jesus? And then what if those people went out? And what if each person, in turn—each of you as your candle is lit—turns to another and helps share with them. If someone’s light goes out, help them relight it. Then hold your candle high.
See how much God can do with some small, flickering flames? That is an amazing picture of what Christmas means. Hope, peace, love, and joy come to us that we might share them with others and find the amazing, luminous glory of God spread across this great earth. How joyful it is that God has loved us with his joy this Christmas. Joy is for us because JOY himself is for us! Will you, like the joy we have received at Christmas, condescend this year to those you know and see around you, and share with them what you and I have been given? Hope. Peace. Love. And all of it wrapped up in JOY!
You and I are called over 150 times in Scripture to rejoice—to come back to joy. Do that today and this Christmas. Let’s continue to sing and do that together in celebration of Christmas today! In doing so, let your joy shine like your candles before one another and a watching world.
Benediction
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy, [love,] and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope [peace, love, and especially, his JOY].”
(Romans 15:13 ESV)
