Next Sunday Advent begins, and in many churches congregations will be singing that glorious Advent hymn by Isaac Watts, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!”. Joy is at the heart of Advent as it leads into Christmas. Indeed, my book on subtitled Preaching the Christmas Story was entitled Joy to the World (IVP 2005). Mary, for instance, praised the Lord when she heard that she was to be the mother of our Saviour, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour” (Luke 1.47). Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in his paraphrase, The Message, Mary excitedly exclaims “I’m bursting with God-news, I’m dancing the song of my Saviour God”. God Joy is there at the very inception of the Christmas story. Later on the angel says to the shepherds, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people” (Luke 2.10).
The birth of any baby is a joyous occasion. The birth of Jesus was surely no exception. Mary and Joseph must have been overjoyed with the birth of their firstborn. True the circumstances surrounding the birth may not have been the easiest. But nonetheless there was joy in that stable. Joy was also present as the shepherds were “watching over their flock by night” (Luke 2.8). Nobody had ever brought them good news before; rather they themselves were regarded by people as ‘bad news’. To be singled out by God in this way was beyond belief. Socially and religiously, they were at the bottom of the heap. But suddenly they discovered that they were on God’s guest list. Yes, for them it was “good news of great joy”. What was true of them, is true of all who discover the good news that God has come to us in the person of his Son to be our Saviour. The word joy appears 155 times in the New Testament. The Apostle Peter, for instance, wrote: “You believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” 1 Peter 1.8. Or as the Good News Bible translates that verse: “You rejoice with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express”.
To return to the hymn of Isaac Watts. It is actually a paraphrase of the second part of Psalm 98, and Watts entitled the hymn ‘The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom’. Here the focus is not just on the coming of Jesus into our world, and also on the time when Jesus will come again in glory to establish God’s kingdom, when “God will wipe every tear” from our eyes. “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Revelation 21.4).
The first verse of the hymn declares:
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her king!
Let every heard prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven and nature sing.
Preparing for Jesus is what Advent is all about. Sadly all too often Jesus is pushed out in people’s preparations for Christmas, where the focus is on buying presents, hanging up the decorations, getting ready for the relatives, and bringing in the turkey and all the trimmings. But much as I love that side of Christmas, ‘the reason for the season’ is Jesus! So in our home, when we follow the Continental practice of opening our presents on Christmas Eve, I always begin by reading the Christmas story from Luke 2 and then go on to say a short prayer in which we thank God for the coming of Jesus.
Hence the second verse of the hymn exclaims:
Joy to the earth, the Saviour reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy.
True joy is at the heart of Christmas!
The third verse develops the reason why we love this exuberant hymn:
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness
And wonders of his love,
And wonders of his love,
And wonders of his love.
Here in this hymn we celebrate the wonders of the first coming of truth and grace seen so clearly in Jesus, as we look forward to the glorious return of the Saviour. So in our homes and in our churches, let us ensure that joy, joy, joy, is present in all worship. Yes, we can experience this joy even when life is tough, when money is in short supply, when a loved one has just died, when one of our family has been made redundant, when a tragedy of one kind another has struck. For even when life is marked by deep unhappiness, we still can know that deep joy which Jesus brings.