By Rev. Joanne Davies
Joy is the passionate “soul yearning” and “reaching for” that which is mysteriously experienced – that which is more than we ask or imagine. Joy is goodness.
Joy is not something we do… Joy is the Divine that beckons us to come forth in communion.
When we answer and live from the joy we experience, and we often surprised by, we approach the moment of the angels rejoicing at Christ’s birth, leading us to our looking to the coming again of the Christ walking in the midst of us.
George Herbert gives us some words to hold in his poem, The Call, which many of know in hymn form.
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a way as gives us breath;
Such a truth as ends all strife,
Such a life as killeth death.
Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a light as shows a feast,
Such a feast as mends in length,
Such a strength as makes his guest.
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a joy as none can move,
Such a love as none can part,
Such a heart as joys in love.
Happiness is fleeting. Joy is not. Identifying and living from the touching of joy in our life is not the easier work of proclaiming happiness.
Joy upholds our soul in suffering, helping us to live life with wellness. A sacrament of Joy if you like.
My son is a writer. Writing is how he examines the magical combination of his imagination and life around him. In his writing good arises not because of power but from the tender and the fragile. Through this focus Garbhan feels deeply for those who are without warmth, shelter, and comforts. This year his feelings gave action to his choosing toys for children who are of without the gift of play and imagination. The toys he chose come with warm childhood memories transferring to the joy arising from his action. He bought all sorts of Ninja Turtle toys and his favourite Grumpy Care Bear and took them to the local Fire-station Toy Drive. I have realised and find mother’s delight seeing that Garbhan has come to know that combining a joy deep in the soul of his memory, mixed with who he is today, allows all the parts in his life where there is suffering to be included in his belovedness. Lived Joy arising from the act of giving is how Garbhan best knows God’s unconditional love. This is joyous in his life. It is not personal happiness.
Knowing God’s unconditional Love. Joy is liberation and Joy is freedom. It is the receiving of salvation.
Joy is not a fond thing. It is not light and fluffy. It has the strength to contain unhappiness and suffering. We remember the prophetic joy of Isaiah. Redemption and eternal love. “And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
We remember then during Advent, as we journey to Christmas, the glorious hope of Christ’s birth into our world, but there is more, because Christ with us, within us, above, below, and around us in faith and sacrament. This is pure joy. God’s Grace experienced is more than we could ask or imagine.
The life of Jesus was one of suffering even in the fullness of the light of knowing his own belovedness. The anticipation of Christmas can be made small, made into a series of coloured bulbs, even trivialized which is the verb used by John Van de Laar, into a pain-denying season of manufactured happiness and collective forgetting of the injustice and suffering on earth. Advent Joy illuminates suffering, the desire and fulfilment of God’s comfort, and God’s tears with us. The joy found there. It truly is, as George Herbert names it… a call. To God. But we must not miss that we also have a call from God, when we experience Joy, we are called to live well with and for all life.
John the Baptist needs to know if Jesus is the one. Will Jesus bring deliverance and new life amid the violence and terror of the Roman occupation? It is to be noted that John does not ask this question for himself. He knows himself to be just one person in a community of people waiting for Christ to come. Even in the most personally dire times, salvation is not an individual pursuit for John. He knows God’s joyous promises. John also recognizes that the work of liberation is a process.
John’s question— “Are you the one…?”—resonates in the today’s world of economic greed and hoarding, the environmental harm and the upheaval and political and power-driven cruelty. It is an Advent yearning and a desire to live from Christmas Joy. The question is also in the spaces of George Herbert’s poem.
Jesus responds by naming his actions of living from the Joy he knows in his soul and the joy of his belovedness and the impacts they have on the community. Jesus speaks of healing and hospitality.
The Gospel – the goodness of Joy is experienced.
Those most vulnerable —like John in prison—receive the gospel not only through words but through actions and community relationships. Caring for those who are most vulnerable, oppressed, and ostracized is a sign of living out the goodness of Joy, just as Jesus did throughout his ministry.
Jesus’ response is a call. To contemplate, to pray and discern and live God’s will – to know joy from happiness. The living illuminates the Joy, and the Joy calls us. It is the Way of Christ. It is a call to care for and see and love those cast out or overlooked: the forgotten, the marginalized, the lonely and suffering. The gospel experienced and the gospel lived is Joy. Becoming like the pouring of water in the font for baptism. The ever-increasing circles in the ripples of the water of life.
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart.