Advent 2017: An unlikely joy

Jesus came to our world and brought with him the offer of restoration, as we saw in Advent 1,* and of righteousness, which was highlighted by Advent 2.  With these offers, Jesus fixes us and forgives us.  There is an obvious reaction to such action, and it became apparent during Advent 3.  Our response to restoration and forgiveness is joy.  Much like its precursors, though, joy is something that comes as the result of God’s initiative, rather than our own effort. 

Joy is a tricky thing.  We often hear about it, especially this time of the year, but I have a tough time pinning down exactly what it is.  It doesn’t look like quite the same as happiness.  Joy seems to be part a worldview, whereas happiness seems to be in the moment.  It is also somewhat different from bliss.  Joy seems to be more of a way of life, whereas bliss is a possibly uncontrolled reaction to something we like.  All that said, joy does seem to be tied to a moment.  The theme of Advent 3 is that this moment is the moment of contact between creator and creation. 

Advent 3 tells us three things about joy in the Kingdom of God.   It begins with a connection to God that is so intense that everything else is irrelevant to your joy.  It moves into actually taking a moment of misery and seeing joyfulness grow out of it.  It closes with a strange idea about who the most joyful people are. 

Because joy is entirely dependant on God and entirely from God, it will not be eliminated by terrible things.  Habakkuk talks about a crop that fails and a flock that does not have young, but he concludes with

…yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;
he makes me tread on my high places.**

This is important.  God does not dismiss our pain nor say it is unimportant.  He does not say our pain is good.  He does not pretend that our pain does not exist.  The pain that Habakkuk is describing is intense.  He wrote in a time and place where food was not readily available if crops did not grow and animals did not reproduce.  The danger that he was writing about was immediate and immanent, but the key word in this passage is yet.  This word means that despite such horror God is the source of joy, strength, and exaltation.  The fact that horror exists in a person’s life does not mean that God is not present.  Horror certainly exists.  Joy can exist alongside it.    

Joy, though, can do more than exist alongside horror.  It can actually grow out of it.  The Psalmist remembers a time when Jerusalem was struggling.  God restored it.  The Psalmist asks God for the same sort of thing to happen again.  The Psalmist knows that if this happens the people who weep will instead shout for joy.  Planting tears, according to the Psalmist, will yield a crop of joy. 

Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.***

This is a powerful poetic image.  If you plant sunflower seeds, you grow sunflowers instead of carrots.  If you plant onion bulbs, you grow onions but you don’t grow beans.  This is the way things work.  If you “plant” tears, then, it should make sense that misery would “grow”.  Instead, though, God takes tears and grows joy.  Bundles of it.****

The fact that joy is present despite bad circumstance and that joy may even come out of bad circumstances leads to a question.  Who then is joyful?  The prophet Isaiah answers this question by explaining who the coming messiah is coming for.  Good news is for the poor.  Healing is for the brokenhearted.  Freedom is for the prisoners and captives.  Comfort is for the mourner.  This is what salvation looks like: good news, healing, freedom, and comfort.  The prophet explains why God’s salvation looks like this

For I the Lord love justice*****

During my reflection on Advent 1 I explained that knowing what story I am in and knowing who the author of that story is made the type of ministry that I am a part of personally sustainable for the last six years and lets me look ahead to the future.  The joy described in Advent 3 helps me to realize that the story that I am in is a true story.  I see joy at work when a man barely older than my dad who has a severe addiction that he has no desire to address and who has been homeless for a good portion of my life makes one of the same three silly jokes whenever he sees me and laughs every time, as if he didn’t just say the same thing last Tuesday.  I see joy when the guys eagerly wake up and give a hearty thank you to the folks in the kitchen on Saturday mornings.  They know that a seemingly tireless volunteer has organized a hot breakfast for them every single Saturday for the last year.  The food is important.  Knowing they matter to someone is more important.  I see joy when I have coffee with a man who has had his own apartment for about eight months now, who became a Christian, and who is trying to figure out how to believe all the amazing stories about Jesus and how to make sure they affect his life.  I see joy when I tell him how impressed I am with the progress he has made in the years I have known him.  For me, work – at a homeless shelter in a very poor part of a city that is struggling economically as a whole – is one of the key areas of life that lets me see the sort of joy that Isaiah, Habakkuk, and the Psalmist are talking about. 

The coming of the messiah is imminent.  He is bringing the joy of the Kingdom with him.

--- 

*I am using the Revised Common Lectionary as a guide for my Advent Readings, which you can see here: http://www.commontexts.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/DailyreadingsB.pdf
**Habakkuk 3:17-19, ESV
***Psalm 126, ESV
****Both these points lead to all sorts of questions that I won’t deal with here.  If you find yourself thinking that I’m looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses, I very well may be.  Significant pain has struck a couple people close to me so I have seen what that looks like, but my life to this point has been relatively and blessedly free of direct tragedy so I don’t know what it is at my core.  That said, if you find yourself saying, “Yeah, but, Tony” may I recommend Evil and the Justice of God by N. T. Wright, The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis, and Can God Be Trusted? By John Stackhouse.  Each were helpful to me during my “Yeah, but” moments.  Each of these books indicate that they are apologetic in nature rather than written to help people who are currently navigating pain.
***** Isaiah 61:1-3 and 8, ESV