Joy is the
name of a person. Almond Joy is the name of a candy bar. “Joy” is a movie, a
very nice one, I might add. You have heard the sayings. Joy is an inside job.
Choose joy every day. I choose joy.
Mary
(Luke 1) said that she rejoices because of what we celebrate during Advent.
This
season seems to focus on that … or does it? Is there a difference between
rejoicing, having joy, and the forced seasonal happiness so many expect us to
have during this time of year? Too many people experience too stark of a
contrast between their lives at this season and the rest of the year. Yet, if
we are in touch with the joy that Mary had, a joy received from God, it can
restore to us a sense of wholeness and community.
I am not a person who tends to
display to others the things that give me joy. Yet, joy may not always show
itself in smiles and laughter. It at least suggests the things in which you
have inner happiness and delight. Such joy is not simply on the surface.
Therefore, that in which we have joy reveals the things that matter to us. One way to reflect prayerfully upon your
spiritual gift or your gifts and graces for ministry is to consider the things
that give you your deepest joy. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
(Nehemiah 8:10). That in which you have joy does strengthen you for the journey
of life. Joy reveals your life aim. When we have joy, we know something better
exists. Joy can surprise us. Something outside us has stimulated our inner joy.
It will unleash our imagination and stimulate us to consider new possibilities.
Joy unites us to the world and people around us. What we say with our lives is
what gives our lives its meaning. Now is the time to have joy for the time we
have and the people who have made it meaningful and joyful. We repeatedly know
the original joy in life, joy in the richness, breadth, and beauty of creation
and in each new day, joy in the illuminations of the life of the spirit, power
from action within the order of community life, and a turning to others and
participation in their joys and sorrows.[1]
Note how Mary's song, the Magnificat,
highlights various contrasts. – that in
opposition to brokenness, wrongs, sorrows and sighs, God will prevail, and one
day all shall be well. We could also list many wrongs. In naming what is wrong,
we can give it power over us. The more we focus on the wrongs, the more power
we give them, for they seem even larger than they are. We must not forget what
is right. We need to look for places where the reign of God is evident in our
personal lives, in our community, and in the world. As you praise God, you will
draw strength knowing that no matter the issue, joy truly “comes with the
morning” (Psalm 30).
Karl Barth suggests that when Mary
magnifies the Lord and rejoices in God, it is part of the notion of the beauty
of the Lord attracting people to do so. God, who stoops down to humanity whose
heart is “wicked,” becomes an object of desire, joy, pleasure, yearning and
enjoyment. In a sense, the desperate condition of humanity is confuted and
overcome by the fact that God must be the object of joy. To speak of the beauty
of the Lord in this way is to speak of divine glory. When we speak of the
beauty of the Lord, we are explaining divine glory. It is to say how God
enlightens, convinces, and persuades us. It describes the shape that the
revelation of God takes place. God has this superior force, the power of
attraction, which speaks for itself, which wins and conquers, in the fact that
God is beautiful.[2]
[1] The Greek word for joy refers to having joy in
something, having gladness and great happiness as well as the reason for it. It
refers to inner happiness and delight. Joy is not a surface-level happy – it is
deeply seated in one’s character. Joy may not always manifest itself in smiles
and laughter, but rather in grace and assurance. Joy might be described as
knowing something better exists, and holding onto that which is better. Joy
surprises us. We contemplate something true, good, and beautiful and it brings
enjoyment. We savor the experience, for to analyze it would be to stifle it. It
would be difficult to think of something giving you joy as also something
practical and useful. What brings joy is more than that. Most often, joy is
something we share with another. That in which you have joy reveals your life
aim. Something outside us stimulates us, but joy brings it within us. The
orientation of a human life is toward what brings fullness of life. That which
you love, in which you have joy, and in which you hope, reveal that orientation. Feelings
like this unleash our imagination and stimulate us to consider new
possibilities. Such feelings unite us to the world and to the people around us.
Negative feeling tends to isolate us from the world and from others. The choice
of living life authentically and in freedom leads to genuine joy. Life is on
loan, a loan that has a beginning and an end. We must take the loan seriously
and joyfully. We need to receive the gift of life joyfully. Without the
beginning and end, our lives would not be a story.
[2] (Church
Dogmatics, II.1, [31])
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