During the four weeks before Christmas, a Christian tradition is the season of Advent. The word is from the Latin adventus, which means “arrival”. During Advent, we prepare for the arrival of Christ as a baby born in Bethlehem.

But this season, I’d like to also prepare for the next arrival of Christ: As the King of the Universe who conquered sin and death. The words used to mark each week of Advent — Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love — are equally appropriate for both Arrivals.

This week’s word is Joy.

First Advent

There is a difference being finding joy vs. being able to enjoy an experience. True joy doesn’t depend on circumstances or external happiness. It comes from being tapped in to something bigger and deeper: God’s presence. Awareness of His plan unfolding beyond — and through — our current, temporary circumstances brings joy regardless of what is happening in our day-to-day-life.

Did baby Jesus bring joy to His parents? Of course. Any baby born to loving parents is a source of joy to them. How much more must this baby announced by angels to both Mary and Joseph have brought joy to His parents. Imagine the joy (and also the terror!) of knowing that you have been chosen to be the parents of the Messiah, to provide a home for the most important Child ever born!

Was the process of bringing that baby into the world an enjoyable experience, though? Probably not. Few women would say that they enjoyed childbirth. Even fewer would enjoy it in Mary’s situation: under a cloud of scandal, away from home, having difficulty finding a safe place in a crowded city.

Encounters with Jesus typically brought joy to those involved ¹. The sick were healed; the blind could see; the deaf could hear; the outcasts were accepted. Beyond the immediate, though, Jesus brought a deeper and more lasting form of joy. As the angel told the shepherds that night:

I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:10-11

A Savior, the Christ, the Lord…the long-awaited Anointed One, the special Man sent by God to right all the wrong caused by Satan and Sin…was finally here! Everything in history had been leading up to this one life, this one Child, this descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and David.

Then, 33 years later, Satan tried to snuff out that joy. Jesus died, executed by Rome at the behest of the leaders of His own people. He was hastily buried in a borrowed tomb, while his followers were scattered and hiding. It looked like the angel’s song had been cut short. Until…

The tomb was empty. Jesus was back. He had proven Himself to be so much more than even those who loved Him had imagined. He was not only Messiah. He was God Himself! Can you picture His followers’ joy and awe when they realized just who their Rabbi really was?

Final Advent

Today, we still have experiences that we don’t enjoy. However, He still gives us joy simply by having Him in our lives, belonging to Him, and knowing that He is preparing a place for us (John 14:1-3). When He returns, telling His faithful followers to “enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:19-21, see Matthew 25:14-30 for the full parable), we will begin a life of un-ending joy.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

Joy

We enjoy the festivities of Christmas. It is fun to eat special foods, give and receive gifts, spend time with friends and family, watch once-a-year movies, and sing Christmas carols. But even when times are tough — when a loved one is missing from the party, when food is scarce, when there’s not enough money for gifts — and we can’t enjoy the season, we can still have joy…in presence of the One who is the reason for it.

1. Not counting the Pharisees who were not able to take joy in a Messiah who didn’t fit into the box they had designed for Him, or the Romans who could not take joy in a charismatic figure developing a large following.