Christmas Requires Joy
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
A few weeks ago Buck and I were talking about sermons and we kind of tried to coordinate a little bit what we were going to preach about during a time. He asked me what I was going to preach about and I told him my series of Christmas requiring things and one of those was going to be joy. He said he was going to preach on joy, as well. I thought for about a minute maybe I should change because he would preach before me; but I am thinking, well, you know, the Bible is full of joy. It is everywhere in the Bible, just everywhere. The word joy, in one form or another, as a noun “to have joy” or “to be joyous” appears over 200 times; but the verb “to rejoice” appears also about 200 times. You know a good way to study the Bible is to read it in terms of a category or a subject, like joy or courage, and see what the Bible says about it, or that story says about it. If you read the Bible from cover to cover, you will find joy everywhere. Joy in the creation where God says “it is very good.” Hidden within that is this joyous God who has made everything and you see it again and again and again, particularly in the Psalms. We will read one today when it talks about having joy and our particular Psalm today: “Enter his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise…” That’s like going “Hey! Hallelujah!” …Just like we said “a night of Hallelujahs.”
Maybe you can imagine a little bit if, if, I know it is hard to imagine in Minnesota, but if the Vikings actually did win the Super Bowl, (laughter) how would you feel? …Or if the Twins really did beat the Yankees? You can imagine…I’m sorry…I shouldn’t get into that. It helps to imagine what it is like. That’s what is being said. It is everywhere and particularly at Christmas. The centerpiece of Christmas is joy because the Lord has come, and nothing is the same.
Let’s read the Scriptures together.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. (Psalm 100:4)
And the second Scripture I had was the famous one about the shepherds/ The angels come and say the message about joy. (Luke 2:8-20)
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Let’s pray together.
Lord God thank you for all that you give us, particularly Jesus, as we found out that he is the present that we all get and the joy that is in that. And we pray in his name. Amen.
Several years ago we went on one of those cruises to Alaska. Most of those cruises have excursions; that is, you get off the boat and you go do something. One of the excursions that we did as we got into Juno—Juno is surrounded by glaciers—as we got on a helicopter and we all rode together up on a glacier to do two hours of walking around on a glacier. It was myself, and it was Cathy and it was Melissa. My oldest daughter did something else. We all went up there and, of course, it was the helicopter ride that is the cool thing about it. Then when you get there they teach you how to walk around on ice and they give you those shoes that do that, and that sort of thing. You know, I pulled the guide aside and I said, “You know, we got the two hour tour and we really wanted the four hour tour. Is there something you could do about that?” The guy said, “Well, I can’t give you more than two hours but I’ll see what I can do.” So we got five minutes of training. That was it. We put on the shoes. We got our sticks and we started going. We went over crevasses full of cold water and up hills and without too many times of falling. Cathy actually did fall backwards right into the arms of one of the guides. I’m not sure if that was on purpose or not…but.. But when we got done we were high five’n, and we’re going “Wow this is cool.” We were jumping up and down. It was just a great experience. I’ll never forget it. I think I have told that one to you before a while back; but it was just a great experience.
What were we feeling? We were feeling joy. We were feeling an immense feeling of joy. And you know, God gives us those times, experiences in life that fill us with joy—a sunset in Hawaii or just out on your back porch; a relationship with a husband or wife, some of those times; or a little grandchild that fills your heart with joy; or going to a play or reading a good book; times with friends. Joy that fills our hearts and we love those times and we want to get those times back because they don’t last very long, do they? And why is that true? It is because they are mere reflections of true joy. And true joy is found in, none other, than God himself. I don’t think we think about God that way too often. We should. But God is a being of joy. That to be in his presence is joyful, that the reaction we will have when we get there will be to sing and to shout until we can’t do it any more. It says that Jesus, as we will read one of those Scriptures in a minute, that “for the joy set before him he endured the cross” because he was going to be back with the Father.
The question for all of us is: how do we have more joy? How do we get some of that back when we lose it? Well, I believe that joy is about WHO we know as well as WHAT we know. Well actually I would say it is more about WHO we know that WHAT we know. The very purpose of the Christian life in many ways, among other things, is that it is to be full of joy. That is why I say the Christmas Requires Joy, the Christian life requires joy, and I will tell you what I mean in just a minute, but look what it says, just a couple of Scriptures for you among many I could have chosen.
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalm 16:11)
Then Romans 14:17. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking (and keeping rules), but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…
That’s what it is about. So what do we need? Well, I think we do need, first and foremost, to remember that joy does find its heart in God. One of the things we can learn about life is that if we are not being joyful maybe we have taken a step away God. Now I realize it is hard to be joyful all the time because life is just hard. But, the point is that joy can be had even in the hard times because, secondly, we need to remember that there is a huge difference between happiness and joy. Now, they overlap, they are very similar; but they are very different.
Happiness has as its root word, happenstance, or chance; and usually we are happy based on our circumstances and that is why people are forever trying to create circumstances of happiness. They will go out to the bar. They’ll go to the football game. They’ll go be with friends. There is nothing wrong with some of those things at all; but we are trying to create this joy because we are seeking it: that sunset, that vacation. Not bad, but not the real thing. We place ourselves in certain circumstances and then we become dependent on circumstances for our joy, our happiness. That is why we live in such a throw-away culture, I believe; because when things quit giving us happiness, we discard them. Occasionally that means discarding a husband or a wife or a family or a job or whatever, because we are looking for something that we don’t have. Joy is that persistent gladness that comes not from circumstances but from a relationship and that relationship is with God. C.S. Lewis wrote: “God has designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy (or joyful) in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” There is no such thing.
Having joy, I think we have to begin, in some ways, with the negative. It means dealing with the killjoys. There are a lot of things that kill our joy in life. The Bible is also full of that. It says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling, slander, along with every form of malice.” (Ephesians 4:30-31)
Later, Paul will say, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
Before that he said, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” (Philippians 4:4)
There are many killjoys. What are some of them? Well, of course, the big one would be selfishness. I have used this illustration many times before but it is a good one. Suppose I were to make a picture (photo) of you out here, a picture of the center group. It would be a great picture, except if you looked bad—if you were not smiling, or you were looking somewhere else, or you had your eyes closed. Everybody else could be smiling and wonderful; but, if you weren’t doing anything right, it would be a bad picture because you would be looking for yourself. That is natural, isn’t it? We are all self-centered, every one of us. God has rigged the world, and rigged ourselves, that we are not going to be terribly happy if we are self-centered, even though we are; it is one of those things we have to work at.
To go with that is another word: resentment. Resentment comes from a Greek word which means to chew the cud; in other words, we sort of regurgitate things and chew them over and over and over again. We play home movies in our head about what people have done to us, those little slights that someone has given, or maybe the big slights, or the words people have spoken to us. We all have this problem. We all have resentment. We all deal with it, every one of us. That will kill your joy in a heartbeat. Or unrealistic expectations…I’ll be happy if….I get a new job; or a new wife; or a new husband; or a new place. I’ll be happy if only….things were perfect. Good luck!
The old joke about marriage, about living happily ever after, you know, it goes: I will altar him. You know that is the marriage; but then it becomes: I will alter him. Sometimes jokes just don’t work…I know.
And, of course, ingratitude…If you are not grateful for what you have, you are never going to be happy; you are never going to have any joy. That is why…go memorize Philippians 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, Rejoice! Then he says, “In all your prayers with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.” It follows, without that thanksgiving you won’t be able to rejoice.
Now here is where I get to the title of my sermon. Joy is about doing more than feeling. I have said before that when I was in Afghanistan sometimes I would sit out behind the headquarters building and look at the sunset. It was kind of my way of marking the time. Some of them were just gorgeous. I was reminded as I was praying one day about what was going on and all the things that were going on in my life and hoping that my family was o.k. and all those kinds of things that the joy is not just something that happens to us. Now we feel that way about love. Love is just a serendipitous thing that we fall into. We can’t help it. But the Bible seems to think of love as being a choice. The same is true of joy. Yes, there are things that happen serendipitously—the sunset or enjoying the presence of a person who happened to show up, or watching your little grandson walk and go “Wow. Isn’t that cool?!” and have joy in your heart. There is serendipity there. You know, it says “Rejoice.” Two hundred times it says to rejoice. That is a verb. It’s a command, actually; an imperative, rejoice! Well what if I don’t feel like rejoicing? Well rejoicing means to praise God. Rejoicing means to give God thanks whether you feel like it or not. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise…” (Psalm 100:4) It is a requirement. I’m not trying to set up a rule, like the eleventh commandment. But we are required to have joy, to rejoice, even if we don’t feel like it. That is part of what it means to have joy is to rejoice and if you start rejoicing enough, joy will come, sometimes. Again, Rejoice in the Lord always, and that appears again and again and again in the Bible, over and over and over again. And again, that is just one Psalm. It is all over the Psalms. “…his courts with praise…” Even the Presbyterians picked up on that, in the shorter catechism. Anybody remember what the sorter catechism says? To glorify God, and do what? …enjoy him forever, enjoy him forever. That is a rather subdued way of saying, “Yah!”
Joy comes with saying yes to God. I told you a couple weeks ago about Christmas requiring courage, in particularly in the story of Mary and the shepherds. You know the angel comes on several occasions to several people and says, “Don’t be afraid.” “Have courage.” But then right after that there is this idea of joy. And Mary hears the angel, says “Yes” to God and goes down to be with Elizabeth and she comes up with the most beautiful psalm that she says. She begins with the idea of glorifying the Lord and I actually like another translation that says “My soul exalts in God.” Here she is facing really, really tough times and she knows it; she is not dumb. And yet, she is able to praise God and have joy. The shepherds are the same way. You know, you can imagine these angels showing up and them being really scared and they are going “I am not going there. I’m going the other direction.” And they go, and they see the Christ child. Now, my question to you and it is really rhetorical, but, do you think they would have had joy if they didn’t obey? Remember what Mary said. “May it be to me as you have said.” We just heard it, again, “May it be to me as you have said.” (May what you have said happen to me. I am saying “yes” to your plan for my life.) If we don’t obey we miss out on God’s joy.
There is a well known story about a theologian named William Willimon, who was the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. He once received a phone call from a very irate father.
The caller told Will furiously, “I hold you personally responsible for this.” He was angry because his graduate school bound daughter had decided in his words “to throw it all away and go do mission work in Haiti with the Presbyterian Church.” The father screamed, “Isn’t that absurd? She has a BS degree from Duke and she is going off to dig ditches in Haiti. I hold you responsible for this.”
Will Willimon said, “Why me?”
The father said, “Why you ingratiated yourself and filled her mind with all this religion stuff.
But Willimon was not easily intimidated. He asked the father, “Sir, weren’t you the one who had her baptized?”
“Well, yes.”
“And didn’t you take her to Sunday school when she was a little girl?”
“Well, yes.”
“And didn’t you allow your daughter to go on all those mission trips when she was in high school.”
“Yes. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Sir,” said Willimon, “you are the reason she is throwing it all away. You introduced her to Jesus, not me.”
“But,” said the father, “all I wanted for her was to be a good Presbyterian.”
And Willimon replied, “Well sorry sir, you messed up. You have gone and made a disciple.”
Ahhhh. That hurts a little, doesn’t it? What is the Christian life all about anyway? We really want people to come to church, and learn about being a Presbyterian and all those kinds of things; but that is really not the deal, is it? We all need to be disciples of Jesus Christ. That’s first, Presbyterian is second. That’s first. And what does that mean? Well maybe it means not saying you’re too busy. Maybe it means reading your bible. Maybe it means doing what God wants you to do to make a difference for him in this world. At your funeral will people say you made a difference for Christ, or will they just say you were a nice person or a good Presbyterian? Something to think about and you know what? Joy comes from obeying God and doing what he says. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves why we are not so joyful.
That theme runs right through the Bible too. Just one example of a parable: “Well done good and trustworthy servant, or slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put in charge of many things; and then you may enter into the joy of your master.”
(Matthew 25:21)
Last, but not least, joy requires vision. That is a good place to end. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)
There is a story about when the bubble burst on the tech stocks a few years ago, a Wall Street broker with tongue in cheek told about a Native American friend whose name was Running Deer. “Running Deer had a son on Wall Street,” the broker said, “his name was Running Scared.” It makes a difference whether you are running deer or running scared. If you are running scared then you are in the rat race and life is a burden; but if you are a running deer running for joy for the prize, then life soars, which is the heart of Christian faith. It is also the heart of Christmas.
Would you pray with me?
Lord, help us have more joy. We ask first for your presence in our lives that would overcome our doubts and fears. We ask most of all that you would again send Jesus to us; because so often Lord, and it is easy to do, we forget what it is all about and need to be reminded again and again and you do so with patience and with love. Help us remember that you are joy personified. To have joy means to hold your hand, to follow you, to remember that you are indeed our Father and our God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.