An Advent Sermon about Joy

Many women tell stories of how they loved being pregnant, loving feeling the baby kick, loved that “pregnancy glow”. Well, I didn’t exactly enjoy being pregnant.  I gained 65 pounds in my pregnancy. Ella’s kicks felt like she was practicing for soccer tryouts or a taekwondo competition.  None of my clothes fit.  Don’t be fooled- that pregnancy glow was actually just sweat. I may or may not have been irritable and short towards Josh and others. (I’m sorry josh) My ankles were swollen. My joints hurt. So when I went into labor, I was thrilled that that tiny human living inside my body was about to be evicted. When Ella was finally born, and they placed her in my arms, I experienced something I wasn’t able to fully understand until that very moment- joy. 

Overwhelming joy.  Maybe it was a rush of hormones and the fact that I hadn’t slept in 48 hours or that I just asked my body to do the most physically taxing thing it had ever done before, but I couldn’t help but weep… these were tears of joy. For 10 long months, I anticipated this precise moment- I pictured that moment I’d be able to hold her in my arms, hear her cry, kiss her forehead. I expected her arrival would bring big changes to my life, but I never knew I’d learn that joy wasn’t just a rush of happy thoughts.  Ella taught me that joy was so much more. Joy is the essence of your whole being. It’s the foundation for a richer, more meaningful life.  Joy is an inner belief, on which all other beliefs about the world can sit.  Joy is love of life.  Joy is a life ripe with possibilities. Joy is something that lasts. 

And joy is one of the most complicated emotions to feel. In her research Brene Brown describes one of the ways we shield ourselves from being vulnerable is foreboding joy.  That is, we are always afraid that if we let ourselves experience joy, something bad is likely to happen next. We practice perpetual disappointment. She says, 

“We wake up in the morning and think, work is going well. Everyone in the family is healthy. No major crises are happening. The house is standing. I’m working out and feeling good… Oh no. this is bad. This is really bad.  Disaster must be lurking right around the corner.” (Daring Greatly, 118)

Does this sound familiar? Do you expect the worst so that if the worst does happen, you’re prepared and you expect that the shock and pain won’t hurt as much? Do you automatically go to the worst-case scenario? I’m guilty of this. I put on a thick armor to shield myself from things that are too tough to face head on, those things I’d rather not feel with intensity, the things i avoid because they hurt too much to think about.  No one wants to feel that pain if they can avoid it.  

But how else are we supposed to protect ourselves from disappointment, from pain, from heartbreak? Isn’t it just easier to be prepared for it than live in denial that it won’t hurt that bad?  In Brene brown’s book, “Daring Greatly” those that live in perpetual disappointment describe it like this: “it’s easier to live disappointed than it is to feel disappointed.  It feels more vulnerable to dip in and out of disappointment than to just set up camp there.  You sacrifice joy, but you suffer less pain.”

But what do you miss out on in the process? Connections with others? True intimacy? Real love? 

We do this with God. We put on our armor that is supposed to protect us but instead keeps us in a perpetual state of disappointment.  We begin to expect that God won’t intervene in our lives, or might become the source of our pain, or we might get something we didn’t ask for.  That’s when we begin to believe a false narrative about God, that God doesn’t really care about us. That way, when we are let down, it won’t hurt as much. We sacrifice joy, but suffer less pain.

A few months ago, a friend and I were having an honest conversation about life.  She was going through a tough time and was really struggling. She was telling me she believed God had planted difficult situations in her life for the sole purpose of teaching her a lesson.  Her theology described a God who intentionally caused her pain.  This God of hers was to be feared because he was scary, and forced us into unpleasant and painful situations. She was taught that God was not relatable, not to be trusted, and not her friend. To her, God was constantly looking over her shoulder, waiting for her to screw up so He could punish her.  She had never considered that this was a false God and that the real God loved her no matter what, despite all of her shortcomings, that these obstacles in front of her were not from God but that God was on her side, walking her through to the best possible outcome.   She said “I like this God a lot better.”   She found comfort in knowing that God is for her good, not her peril. 

How many times have our misconceptions of the true loving nature of God keep us from experiencing the joy of Christ?  What are we missing out on when we carry a false image of God that causes us to mistrust the truth? 

Why do we expect the worst from God? Maybe it’s our way of shielding ourselves from feeling the pain of being let down by God, from our faith being shaken, ripped apart until there’s nothing left. Maybe it’s easier to believe something terrible about God so that it’s easier to cast God aside, never to be thought of again. Maybe it’s easier to believe God doesn’t exist at all so we don’t have to be devastated when something terrible happens in our world. How am I supposed to have joy in the midst of all the sorrow and despair in the world?

Isn’t it so easy to lose sight of joy? 

But the good news is that God is good.  God is loving. So much so that God sent God’s son to earth, intervening in the everyday lives of regular people so that we might be saved and restored, which truly is “good news of great joy for all people!” Joy, then, becomes an attitude God’s people adopt, not because God promises life to be pain-free and easy, but because our hope is in God’s love and promise.  

There can be hope in the midst of hardship.  When the Israelites were in slavery in Egypt and God raised up Moses to lead them out of the desert, they rejoiced in the midst of all their pain and suffering because they knew something greater was coming. They trusted in God’s promise of redemption. 

John the Baptizer preaches of a coming Messiah whose birth proves this promise of God to intervene in the world. The great joy of Christmas is that we haven’t been abandoned, no matter how easy it is to think ‘worst-case scenario.” The joy of God’s people isn’t determined by our struggles, but by the promise we have in the future restoration of the world. 

I became a Christian when I was 16 years old. I had committed my life to following Jesus, and being a perfectionist, I wanted to do it perfectly as prescribed in the Bible (whatever that looked like). I searched and searched the Bible for a to-do list of things I could check off to prove my devotion to God. When I began feeling called to ministry, I’d ask my youth leaders how I could know if God was really calling me to ministry, no one could give me a straight answer and just told me I needed to follow the “Will of God.”  Ok, but what does that mean? Give me concrete examples! …silence…I begged for someone to just give me a black and white list of things I needed to do in order to fulfill the “will of god.”  This was infuriating. If 3+3=6, why couldn’t someone just say “the will of god is…..” and give me a satisfying answer.  Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. 

In the scripture today, the crowd has similar frustrations. John issues a harsh eschatological warning. He begins by calling them a “brood of vipers” (which I feel like would be a really good name for a heavy metal band). He warns the crowd that mere membership in a church won’t cut it. Religious heritage won’t be enough either. Repent! Judgement is near. He speaks in metaphor saying, “even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

So the crowd finds themselves asking the same question I did: “ok, what does that even mean? What shall we do? Just tell us what to do”

John answers by asking, “How many coats do you own?” 

“Well, it depends on what you mean by “coat.”  Does a hoodie count as a coat? And what about a vest? Is a sweatshirt considered a coat?  I’ve got a few light jackets, some for running and others for those nice spring days….oh and I have my ski jacket that I’m holding on to just in case I find myself skiing again one day… and my Melanzana pull over that I got in Colorado with the youth is sort of like a shirt because it’s thin, so that might not count as a coat. I also have a few blazers that make me look fancy and professional so surely that’s not considered a coat….”

At this point, John would probably roll his eyes at me and ask again.  “How many coats do you own?”

“If I’m honest, I probably have 15 coats.”

“Then you have more than you need. Share with someone who doesn’t have one.”

A tax collector then asks, “What about us? What should we do?”   

John replies, “Don’t take more than the amount prescribed. Don’t swindle and cheat.  Be content with your wages.”

A solider asks the same question and John replies the same way- “Do your job. Don’t extort people, don’t blackmail them and don’t abuse others to make more money.” 

It all seems simple enough.  If you have more than you need, give away the excess to provide for the needs of others, not just to assuage your guilt for your over consumption. Don’t cheat others in order to pad your wallet. Don’t extort someone for your benefit.  It’s like what we teach our kindergarteners- “Share.  Be fair. Don’t bully.” These seem like very doable things, right? Shouldn’t we be modeling it to our children If we expect it from them? 

John is teaching the crowd that this isn’t how we earn salvation, but rather challenges us to fruitful living, because we show our faith by our actions. Demonstrating our concern for the well-being of others by sharing our resources is how a more trustworthy society emerges and we begin to see God’s kingdom develop on earth as it is in heaven. Repentance becomes more about action, the fruits that emerge from a society that cares for the least of these, for those who are suffering; for those who are in pain.  The lifestyle that reflects genuine repentance looks like peace, and justice, and compassion, and joy. 

Joy isn’t found in simple emotions but rather in our attitudes, our behaviors, and relationships with others. It’s sharing our abundance with others. It’s connecting with a loved one.  It’s waking up each morning and practicing gratitude for God’s provision, imagining all the good that can happen on this day instead of the bad. We usher joy into the world when we slow down to notice the ordinary moments, when we take an intentional second to think about how we are grateful for what we have, when we give out of our abundance, and for when we allow joy to become part of who we are, instead of despair. 

In her research, Brown discovered that the antidote for foreboding joy was practicing gratitude. She found that those who experienced real joy had often experienced the most profound losses and traumas, like losing a child, genocide, or terminal illnesses. They described joy as different from happiness in that it was “a spiritual way of connecting with the world.” Intentionally practicing gratitude allows us to see that joy comes in ordinary moments, like the laughter of a child, or bubbles in the sanctuary.  We can’t take for granted the little things that can bring us joy because we are too distracted looking for the extraordinary.    We must be grateful for what we have and must celebrate it! Don’t ignore your own joy because you can think of ten other people who have legitimate reasons to feel despair. We cultivate hope when we can claim our joy and it makes us stronger in the process. 

Rev. Emily Heath says, “Claiming joy is an act of faith, and living with that joy is an act of revolution in a world that could use a little joy right now. God’s gift of joy is there for us all to claim, not just in the good times, but especially in the bad.” 

When we believe Jesus’ love has overcome death and pain and disappointment, joy becomes our most natural expression. Our hearts are oriented towards a God bent on justice and restoration. A Messiah is coming, one that is so great that he will sanctify, purify, challenge, and restore us.  The joy of God’s people isn’t in our daily struggles but in our future destiny.

We must live as the people that believe this joy and the Child who brings it. Now this is Good News that can change the world. Thanks be to God. 

Wanna watch it? Here it is!