Surprised By Joy

Luke 1:39-45
Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 24, 2006

Mary had been minding her own business when Gabriel showed up that day in Nazareth. Evidently, he hadn’t made an appointment, because when he greeted Mary, he sacred her to death. “Greetings,” he said, and even though Luke leaves the detail out, Mary must have gasped because the next thing Gabriel said was, “don’t be afraid! I’m here because God sent me to you.” The whole situation, mind you, had to have struck Mary like a good news-bad news sort of deal even if Gabe HAD been sent from God. “Yeah, the good news is that this guy who just beamed down in front of me is from God, but he just told me I’d be pregnant out of wedlock and the only explanation I have for the local deacons is that God did it.” Maybe that’s why Mary left town pretty soon after that rendezvous with Gabe – she knew that the pregnancy of her cousin Elizabeth had something to do with God and just maybe, maybe her own situation had something to do with Lizzie’s. Maybe God was up to something and maybe he was including Mary in on the deal.

I have to think that things really came together for Mary when she went to see Elizabeth. Right away Elizabeth confirms things. “The mother of my Lord has come to see me and the joy is so great that the baby in my womb leapt when the sound of your voice reached his little yet-to-be born ears. You know, you’re a particularly blessed young woman because you have staked your life on the fact that God will be true to the promises he makes.” That’s when Mary sings one of the first Advent/Christmas carols. The way Luke presents it, the song gushes spontaneously from Mary’s soul into eloquent poetry. Joy fills Mary’s life.

Joy. The fourth Sunday of Advent is devoted to Joy. We sing songs like “Joy to the World,” and “How Great Our Joy.” We light a joy candle. Joy, joy, joy. With so much emphasis on joy, joy should be easy at Christmas, right? After all, everybody gets into merry-making at this time of year. The whole season’s designed for it, what with decorations going up in stores as early as Halloween and a local radio station playing Christmas tunes 24 hours a day starting back around the first of November. Pop artists who’ve never crossed the threshold of a house of worship release Xmas albums. James Taylor, a self-proclaimed unbeliever, even got into the act this year. Gatherings abound with all kinds of God-rest-ye-merry parties endeavoring to arouse that so-called Christmas spirit, that spirit of excitement we had when we were kids and dreaming of owning a Red Rider, carbine action, 200 shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock. With all the merry-making going around at this time of year, joy should be easy, shouldn’t it?

There’s a problem, though. How joyous are all those people in line at the particular box store you go to for cheap plastic from China? Or ask the mental health workers who are currently bracing themselves for the upsurge in admissions to psychiatric clinics that come with January every year how abiding the general sense of joy is in our world. Or talk to your friend whose face is creased with the anxiety of anticipating the bills from maxed out credit cards. Despite the merry-making, despite all the exchanged gifts, many people find joy an elusive state of mind. Why is that?

For one thing, joy cannot be manipulated. Merry-making and joy are not the same thing. Merry-making won’t produce joy any more than driving a car will produce oil. It might make you giddy for a while, but it’ll wear off, in some cases even before the blue lights flash in the rear view. Joy gives rise to a merry heart, not the other way around, and joy won’t submit to anyone’s technique, or to the wiles of commercial advertisers who make sure that the rail-thin models on television smile ecstatically when their boyfriends or husbands or significant others give them a diamond, or in some cases a silver, luxury SUV. If you believe the propaganda of the broadcast media, joy comes when you have the right credit card in your wallet.

In a word, the commercial, consumption-oriented world around us thinks that joy is something you can manipulate into your life. If you don’t have joy, then all you have to do is employ the latest commercial technique, and don’t worry about the interest rates.
But God ambushed Mary. Joy followed the ambush. This isn’t how we’ve been trained to think but we know in our hearts that it’s true. We’re always surprised by joy.

Think about it. Jokes work best when the punch line surprises you. “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.” Why didn’t anybody laugh? You all know the punch line. It doesn’t surprise you. That’s why all sorts of new cross-the-road jokes started emerging, like, “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from Colonel Sanders.” Or, “To show the ‘possum that it could be done.” When one punch line ceases to surprise, and therefore create the joy intended, we change the punch line in order to get the laugh and the subsequent happiness.

After the morning worship one Sunday, a boy said to his mother, “Mom, I’ve decided to become a pastor when I grow up.”
“Oh,” said the mother, feeling the glow of pride in her chest, “what made you decide to become a pastor?”
“Well,” answered the boy, “since I expect that I’ll have to go to church every Sunday anyway, I figure it’ll be more fun to stand up and yell.”

You know why I make the coffee at my house? I hold the Bible as my authority for living and it says “Hebrews.”

Why are you scratching yourself? I’m the only one who knows where it itches. I love that one! It really took me by surprise.
While I was working with international students in Austria, I met a guy from the University of Leeds in England who was majoring in humor. Yes, he was majoring in humor. I said to him, “Boy that’s a funny major,” and he said, “Yeah, I’ve heard that one,” and didn’t laugh, so I stifled my chuckle and felt stupid. Anyway, he had learned the kind of process that creates jokes and by the time you’d tell him a joke, he already had figured out the punch line, and he’d tell you before you finished. I never met a more un-fun guy to be around. Who’d have thought that if you majored in humor, you’d become an unbearable bore? But this guy always knew what was coming. He was never surprised. He was always in control. There was no joy!

Joy comes when we’re out of control, in fact, when we give ourselves over to a process that we trust, when we receive the gift. Joy comes when we’re receptive.

Jackson Browne once wrote a song which began with these lyrics:

“Walking slow down the avenue, down through my old neighborhood.
Don’t know why I’m so happy – I’ve got no reason to feel this good.”

I’ve felt that way before. There have been occasions when I’ll be walking through my neighborhood and I’ll see the yellow-orange disk of the sun back-lighting the branches of the trees so that they look like dark traces of intricate lace intertwining over the brightness. And I’ll look up and see a watery blue sky back-dropping apricot colored clouds riding along in an upper atmospheric wind; and I’ll feel in my place and lucky, fortunate, and blessed – and I’ll see young couples and not envy their youth; hear of successful musicians and not envy their fame; read about politicians and not covet their power; see luxury cars of executives and not feel like an underachiever. Instead, I feel at home in my skin, grateful for the trips I’ve taken and the impressive people I’ve met, astounded that I got linked up with a church like this, and a sense of well being envelopes me in those moments and I think that’s when I’m surprised by Joy. I wasn’t planning to feel that way, but it happened.

This means, of course, that there is something about Joy over which we have some control – we can create and nurture the kind of circumstances which the wisdom of the ages has said open up the door for Joy to enter. Going to a worship service occasionally is only the beginning of creating those circumstances. You see, in our scriptures, the Apostle Paul wrote that Joy is a fruit of the spirit. It is a fruit, which means that it must grow over time before it ripens. It cannot be rushed. You go continually to the garden where you pull up weeds and till the soil, add fertilizer when it needs it, and suddenly one day, on its own and at its own speed, it’s ready. You have it – a beautiful red ripe tomato. And the tomato will do that even if you go out of town for a vacation.
You see, joy jumps you. You’ve got no reason to feel this good, but you do. It is a gift.

We won’t be acquainted with Joy by manipulating the externals and people around us – we will be repeatedly surprised by Joy when we enter into the discipline of following Christ, tilling the gardens of our souls until our confidence grows that, indeed, God will fulfill what God has promised – no matter what, and no person or circumstance will ever change that. When that confidence grows in us, then ultimately it will not rob us of our joy when someone in the family doesn’t do what we would’ve done, or what we wished they would do. Because we know, we’re not in charge – it’s God’s deal.

I’ve sat by the bedsides of lots of people dying. Some do it well, others not so well. Some people look into the face of death, and despite a lifetime of church attendance, they quail, bargain, weave elaborate fantasies about how they’ll escape this inevitability which befalls us all. Usually this is accompanied by family members who really don’t know how to let go. I wonder in those situations: if they really believed they were going into the presence of God, why do they resist it so?

But other people look into the face of death and smile. They know it’s powerless. They have absolute confidence that they came from God, that they belong to God, and that this death only brings them into an uninterrupted communion with their very source of being, with love itself. They know a joy unshakeable.

Joy. Poverty cannot drain it. Money cannot buy it. Governments cannot legislate it nor tax it. Friends cannot betray it. Disease cannot blunt it. Death cannot kill it. Joy rests on a soul confidence rooted in a reality no science can measure. Joy’s origins are in a far country beyond the borders of the kingdom of this world. Joy recognizes that we belong to someone who eagerly awaits our return with open arms. That someone knows our deepest nature, our deepest longings, our truest passions, our fondest desires. And Joy knows that relationship will never end. Joy is the confidence that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Joy is the attitude that looks into the mystery of the future and says, “Yes!”

Blessed is she who believes that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.