“Joy to the world, the Lord has come!” We hear Christmas music all around us, replete with calls for celebration. Yet many of us become so swept up in the swirling, busy, dashing about, figuratively and literally, that the Christmas season becomes a time of stress, anxiety and for many, profound loneliness.
Christmas comes around every year, simply because it does. It is so embedded in our culture that celebrating has become reflexive. The lights, the songs, the gifts just seem to happen almost by themselves.
Yet do we understand, or take the time to reflect upon, this pervasive call to JOY? Seriously, with the state of the world, and the increasing turmoil in our culture, what is there to be all that happy about?
But here is an important distinction. “Happiness” and JOY are not the same. Happiness is superficial; JOY is subterranean. It is great to be happy, and I am surely no enemy to happiness, but when the ponds of happiness dry up, what is there to sing about?
Here at Fellowship Deaconry Ministries we have several wells. One of those wells is 290 feet deep. The water it delivers is cool, clean, refreshing and reliable. We are even designated locally as a disaster relief site because we have such a reliable source of clean water, even in dryer times.
JOY is like that 290’ deep well. It is a source of confidence and refreshing that can be drawn up from the depths even when the surface waters of “happiness” have dried up. So, what is the wellspring of JOY from which we are reminded to drink each Christmas season?
That source of JOY is nothing less than the assurance of God’s love.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son …”
(John 3:19).
When we mark the birth of Jesus Christ at the Christmas season, it is for no purpose other than to celebrate the cool, clean, refreshing and reliable LOVE of God toward us. This LOVE is unconditional, even if unrequited. That confidence melts away fear, washes away shame, and heals broken places.
When the ponds of happiness have been evaporated by the winds of distress, disappointment or disaster, we still have that subterranean JOY from which to fill our cups. We are LOVED.
Through Christ the LOVE of God has come to us, and in the Holy Spirit that LOVE dwells within us, whether we are in a dark valley, on a mountain top, or in a busy shopping mall. We are LOVED. In Christ, the inexhaustible LOVE of God has been extended to us, and the result is JOY.
“Joy to the world, the Lord has come!"
