In the blog written for the First Sunday of Advent we looked at the hymn, ‘Joy to the world the Lord is come’. In my blog written for the Third Sunday of Advent, I want to return to the theme of joy, but focus on the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4.4, where he wrote: “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say Rejoice” (NRSV). Or as Eugene Peterson puts it is his paraphrase: “Celebrate God, all day, every day. I mean revel in him!” (The Message). This note of joy permeates the whole letter of Philippians. Although it is one of his shorter letters, the words joy and rejoice occur fifteen times. For example, he speaks of the joy of payer (1.4); of the joy of seeing the Gospel preached (1.18); and of the joy of Christian service (2.17). He urges the Philippians to rejoice (2.18; 3.1); and now here in he twice more urges the Philippians to rejoice (4.4).
What is joy? Is joy the same as happiness? Let me tell you a story first told by George Mikes, and judge for yourself as to whether it is about joy or about happiness? The story goes:
“A man goes to a rabbi and complains: ‘Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?’ The rabbi answers: ‘Take the goat into the room with you’. The man is incredulous, but the rabbi insists: ‘Do as you are told and come back in a week’. A week later the man comes back, feeling half dead and said: ‘We cannot stand it. The goat is filthy’. The rabbi tells him: ‘Go and let the goat out, and come back in a week’s time’. A week later the man visits the rabbi and he is over the moon, and said: ‘Life is beautiful rabbi. No goat, only the nine of us’.
Is that joy? Or is it happiness? I suggest that what the man experience was happiness. For happiness is what happens to us when life goes well, whereas joy is something much deeper. Happiness is dependent upon circumstances, whereas joy is independent of circumstances.
Here in Philippians 4 Paul calls us to rejoice not in the fact that we are not having to share our bedroom with a boat, but to ‘rejoice in the Lord’. It is those three words, ‘in the Lord’, which make all the difference. In Jesus we have so much reason to rejoice.
In this time of Advent and of Christmas we rejoice in the coming of Jesus to us. The coming of Jesus into our world is the cause for our great joy today. As the angel said to the shepherds: “I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in David’s town your Saviour was born – Christ the Lord” (Luke 2.10). To their amazement the shepherds discovered that Jesus came for them. Socially and religiously, they were at the bottom of the heap. Cold-shouldered by all god-fearing people because of their lifestyle, they were on nobody’s guest list. But suddenly they discovered that they were on God’s guest list. The doors of the synagogue may have been closed to them, but the doors of the Kingdom were not. To them a Saviour was born. Here, indeed, was “good news of great joy”. Nobody is beyond the pale as far as God is concerned. What was true for the shepherds, is also true for people today. The ordinary people as well as the important people, the non-churchgoing people as well as the church-going people. All are encompassed by the love of God. It does not matter who we are or what we have done. Nobody is too far from for God. He has provided a Saviour for us. Here is cause for joy this Advent and this Christmas. Jesus came for you and for me. As the Dutch Jesuit, Henri Nouwen, once put it: “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved”. So, in the words of Paul, “rejoice in the Lord; again, I say, rejoice”.
But joy cannot be limited to this time of the year. Joy is also the dominant note of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. On Good Friday we rejoice in the fact that when Jesus died on the Cross, he died for us. Death is normally a cause of sorrow, not a cause of joy. But from the vantage of faith, that saddest of days is also the gladdest of days. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans: “We rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5.11); for “We were God’s enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son”. On Easter Day we also rejoice for Jesus in raising from the dead broke the power over death. As the Apostle Peter wrote in his first Letter: “God gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope” (1.3). He went on: “So you rejoice with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express”. Death no longer has the last word: Jesus does.
So, in this season of Advent and Christmas, as also later on Good Friday and Easter Day, we have every reason to obey the command of the Apostle Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always”.