Sing joyfully because of you
Third Sunday of Advent, December 18, 2018
He will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals. – From Zephaniah 3
God indeed is my savior; I am confident and unafraid. With joy you will draw water at the fountain of salvation. – From Isaiah 12
Chris has been a youth minister since he was a student at Urbana Middle School. Hank Sanford, his mentor, helped him put together a group of young men who played basketball in our driveway and read the Bible together. Once a week. Every week.
Now his administrative and people skills enable him to lead the Family Ministry team at West Side Christian Church in Springfield. But every Sunday you still find him preaching to the junior high kids. By going first, he still enables them to play ridiculous and physically embarrassing games. His birthday is tomorrow. He’s older than he looks.
But this devotion is about joy. Boldly, a few days before his birthday Chris posted, or re-posted, a video on Facebook and Youtube. Four or so years ago he bribed three other ministry crazies to come with him to share their joy in mostly empty stores at White Oaks Mall.
Joy is not the same as happy. En-joy mostly means allowing joy to enter you. Re-joy means do it again. That’s the video in a nutshell. They smiled, mostly, but their “happy” wasn’t the point. It was the singing and dancing and stretching up escalators that brought me joy. And I’m sure, them too.
Why do so many people watch Elf Every Single Year at Christmas? Our kids Andi and Aki make sure they have reserved seats at one of Austin’s Alamo Dinner Theaters so they can go to the Sing-a-long. They go because they want to be re-infected with Will Ferrell’s joy.
And I don’t care if much of it is laced with sarcasm. This is joy anyway. (Chris, by the way, looks a lot like Will Ferrell when he’s dressed in a green short-pants-suit.) I am en-joyed when I watch Elf (or its later kind-of-look-a-like Christmas Chronicles, I re-joice, and I am filled. Often, because I’m me, my eyes overflow because the joy inside gets a little too big.
There’s an inside-outside thing with joy. It’s about joy when Beatle George Harrison writes, “And the time will come when you see we’re all one and life flows on within you and without you.”
Along the Christ-following highway, joy is a big deal. Pope Francis’ first encyclical, Evangelii Gaudium, begins: “The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. With Christ joy is constantly born anew.” This is what draws us to Jesus, and this is what keeps us there.
John Piper’s definition draws alongside: “A good feeling in the soul produced by the Holy Spirit, as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world.”
All these ways of describing joy transcend happiness or optimism, and also suffering, anger and despair. They suggest deep interrelations between my spirit and God’s Spirit. Joy is the birthplace of faith and hope, and creates an equanimity that allows me to live here and now, and die then and later, and accept them both with … joy.
Happy birthday, Chris. Thanks for sharing!
Lord, you are right here while I’m writing this. Your spirit pushes through me, and thank you for the pushing. Bless us all today with more joy than we expect. It’s right there for us. Open up our hands.
http://www.davesandel.net/category/advent-and-christmas-devotions-2018/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archive.php?year=2018
