Joy

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger." (Luke 2:8–12)

Christmas is the celebration of the advent of joy—the coming of joy to a joyless world.

The Universal Pursuit of Happiness

Joy and happiness are among the topics I most enjoy speaking about. If you are an American seeking the American dream, part of that dream is the pursuit of happiness. It is codified in one of our founding documents: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." People from all over the world come here as immigrants to pursue happiness, to find joy in some possible way.

The 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote: "All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it is the same desire in both, attended with different views." Some may argue whether that is valid, but in most of our lives we see it to be the case. I have yet to meet someone who does not desire to be happy, who isn't hoping to find joy.

God Hardwired Us for Joy

I believe God created us this way—He hardwired us to long for and look for happiness and joy. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists." God has hardwired all 7.4 billion people on this planet to seek joy, and I believe He did so knowing that if you pursue happiness and joy, the odds are in His favor that you will ultimately turn to Him, because He is the source and author of all true joy.

Unfortunately, in the pursuit some people get hung up on things they think will bring happiness but that never satisfy. He alone satisfies the longing of our hearts. This season points to that reality better than any other, because in Christmas—when you boil it down—we are celebrating the advent of joy, the coming of joy to the world. We even sing it: "Joy to the World."

Last night my family gathered with my wife's family—forty or fifty of us. Very few of them are believers or read the Bible, yet every year on the Saturday before Christmas they gather and read through the biblical account of the Christmas story, and this passage in Luke 2 is one of those.

In the Beginning There Was Joy

The Bible begins with the account of creation. In Genesis, the book of origins, God created the heavens and the earth, and at the end of each day He beheld what He had made and said, "It is good." On the sixth day He created man in His image, but God knew something was missing. He caused all the animals to pass before Adam to be named, and Adam saw that there was part and counterpart, male and female—yet for him there was not found a helper comparable to him.

So God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and from his side—many translations say "rib," but "side" may be better—God made one in order to make them one again, joining them as companions in relationship. In these opening chapters we find that the gift-giving God lived in fellowship and communion with humanity, walking with man in the cool of the day.

Because of who God is, there was joy. Psalm 16:11 says, "In Your presence is fullness of joy." Adam experienced that fullness, unhindered by sin. There was also the relational joy of companionship. Solomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived, speaks of it in Proverbs 5:18, "Rejoice with the wife of your youth," and in Ecclesiastes 9, "Live joyfully with the wife whom you love." In the beginning there was joy.

The Fall and a World of Misery

That joy was short-lived. We don't know how long it lasted, but it was devastated in Genesis 3. Into the joyful world of Adam and Eve came sin and ultimately death. Fear enters in (v. 10), deception (v. 13), a curse (vv. 14, 17), enmity and separation between man and God and between human beings (v. 15), pain and sorrow (vv. 15–16), toil (v. 17), thorns (v. 18), sweat and death (v. 19), sacrifice (v. 21), evil (v. 22), and exile (vv. 23–24). Man was banished from the presence of God, and that fullness of joy was gone.

Paul says in Romans 5:12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned." This is the experience we have been born into—under sin, death, enmity, fear, deception, and curse. The human experience after the fall is characterized by misery.

We see it every day. We no longer live under a 24-hour news cycle; news changes every second, and we know about it constantly. In 2015 we've seen terrible things in the Middle East, in Africa, the refugee crisis in Syria, terrorist attacks in Paris, and close to home in San Bernardino. For a moment we may separate from it, but then it hits home—there is not a day that someone in our church is not experiencing a heavy trial, the loss of a loved one, of health, of a job. All of this is the result of the curse.

God's Plan to Restore Joy

But that is not the way God designed it. Not that He did not know in His foreknowledge that this would result—but He did not make us robots. He gave us the ability to choose Him, and therefore also the ability to choose not Him, and even the very first man and woman chose another way. So sin and misery entered, but not as God intended.

So God purposed another plan, a way to reconcile us and bring us back into the experience of fullness of joy—into His presence, into connection with one another, and with a purpose to carry that joy to the world. That is our vision here at Cross Connection: life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus.

Like many gift-givers, the gift-giving God couldn't help dropping hints along the way. My wife loves giving gifts; she wraps presents and sets a day aside to open them, but she can't contain the excitement, so she gives hints. God was like that. He planned this great gift to bring joy to a joyless world, and He knew exactly when it would be revealed. From the fall until that day, He gave hints through the prophets.

The Prophets Foresaw the Advent of Joy

A classic passage is Isaiah 9. Many Christmas cards carry verses 6 and 7: "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Just before that, in Isaiah 9:1–5, Isaiah describes this gift in terms of joy—joy like bringing in the harvest, like receiving a Christmas bonus, like winning a battle and dividing the spoil. Light comes into a dark place, and the joy is personified in a person: "For unto us a Child is born." Later, in Isaiah 61:1–3, he says the Messiah will console those who mourn and give "the oil of joy for mourning."

The prophets of old foresaw the advent of joy. They could see it coming in the distance. In Genesis 3:15 they tell us He would destroy the curse of sin and the one who brought it, Satan. In Genesis 12:1–3 He would come from the family of Abraham; in Genesis 17 through Abraham's son Isaac; in Genesis 25 through Isaac's son Jacob; in Genesis 49 through Jacob's son Judah; in 2 Samuel as the son of King David. In Isaiah 7 He would be born of a virgin, and in Micah 5:2 He would be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. All of it pointed to the One who would bring joy.

Joy Has Come to the World

And then it came about, as we read in Luke 2:8–12. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell us He came from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah, through King David, born of a virgin betrothed to Joseph, who was of David's lineage. A Roman census required everyone to return to their hometown, so Joseph took his pregnant wife, who had never known a man, to Bethlehem, and there she gave birth to the child whom angels proclaimed as joy come to the world—not for one small group in one place at one time, but for all people in every age.

Later in His ministry, going about Galilee, Jerusalem, and the region of the Decapolis, Jesus preached the gospel and people began to follow Him. Days before He was betrayed and crucified, He said in John 15:11, "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full." In a world of misery, Jesus says, "I've spoken to you the gospel so that My joy would be in you and your joy would be full." And on the very night He would be betrayed, He prayed in John 17:13, "These things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves."

The Christian and the Church Marked by Joy

The Christian experience should be characterized by joy. It is one of the fruits of the Spirit—the evidence that God dwells in us. The world should be able to see joy in the life of the follower of Jesus. In a nation given to the pursuit of happiness, people who are seeking it should see joy in followers of Jesus, because in His presence is fullness of joy, and He spoke the gospel so His joy would be in us.

The church—the gathering of followers of Jesus—is to experience, express, and extend joy. We are the instrument through which joy is extended to the world. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have received the good news of great joy, and you are to express it within the body and extend it to people outside these walls—your family, your coworkers, your neighbors.

It is unfortunate that in our day Christians are so often characterized more by fear than by anything else. When the world looks at Christians in the West, the leading impression is that they are afraid of the world. But we have nothing to be afraid of, because Christ is in us. What the world should see is joy, and what they generally see is fear, rebuke, and anger.

Charles Spurgeon said it well: "When you speak of heaven, let your face light up and be irradiated with a heavenly gleam. Let your eyes shine with reflected glory. And when you speak of hell—well, then your everyday face will do." Our lives should be irradiated with heavenly gleam. To extend glory means to cause it to cover a larger area. May our lives individually, and this church corporately, be a place from which joy extends to our community.

Joy for All People

Was Jesus born on December 25 two thousand years ago? We don't really know—the odds are one in 365. But it doesn't matter what day He was born; what matters is that He came. He came to bring good news of great joy for all people—white and black and every other color, male and female, Muslim and Chinese and Mexican and American, all people. No one is outside the reach of His grace and His joy. So we cannot harden our hearts toward any people, but must be open to share His joy with all.

How is Jesus able to extend joy for all people? I think one answer is found in Isaiah 53, a poetic prophecy of the suffering of Jesus on the cross, written 700 years before He died.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4–6)

Jesus is able to bring joy to the world and give us access to fullness of joy through the gospel because He took our grief, our iniquity, and all our sin upon Himself on the cross. He came to do this so He could give us the oil of joy for mourning, so we could experience His fullness of joy. He has borne our griefs.

Communion

We're going to finish by partaking of the bread and the cup, remembering the One who came to bear my grief, my sorrow, my iniquity, our sin upon Himself. His body was broken for us and His blood was shed for us, so that our sin could be removed and we could experience fullness of joy forever in His presence.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank You that, though we have fallen short and failed You by our sin, and though through our sin we have experienced the misery and sorrow of this world, You, Jesus, came down into this darkness to bring light and joy for all who would put their trust and faith in You. We thank You that You willingly laid down Your life—You gave Your body to be broken, Your back to be whipped, Your hands to be nailed to a cross—and there You died for our sin. Your blood was shed so that we could experience joy through forgiveness, through Your righteousness. I pray, God, that we would experience it, express it, and extend it to others. As we now prepare our hearts to remember Your death, burial, and resurrection through the partaking of the bread and the cup, minister to us, Lord, and help us to remember the goodness of Your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.