December 15 Advent: Get Ready to Rejoice!
Luke 1:26-28
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.
Most encounters with angels in the Bible, usually begin with the heavenly messengers comforting the surprised and terrified recipient with, “Do not be afraid.”
The arch-angel Gabriel comes to a young girl from Nazareth with, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” In simpler words, “Hey! You are going to love this! Jehovah-God is with you and has an amazing idea to rescue his people and change the world, and it includes you!”
Seeing Mary’s look of bewilderment and fear, Gabriel then adds, “Do not be afraid.”
As we begin Week 3 with the theme of Joy, consider: what if Gabriel is so inspired by God’s cosmic move of redemption and love, that his message to Mary begins with an invitation to rejoice… God is up to something and you are about to play a big part. This is going to be amazing, profound, and wonderful, let’s rejoice!
What would it look like for you to begin each day this week with a prayer and pronouncement that echoes Gabriel’s message to Mary: “God is up to something and I am about to play a big part. This is going to be amazing, profound, and wonderful; I am starting today by rejoicing!
December 16 Advent: Choosing Joy
Nehemiah 8:10 (NIV)
“Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
In our living room in a wall hanging made up of four planks of wood painted with colors of a beach and ocean motif: tan, blue, and yellow. Across the staves is written, “Choose Joy.” I once served with a student who led worship in Chapel and lived with exuberant joy. I know a number of students thought, “That’s got to be fake. No-one can be that nice and smiley.” Yet, knowing this student, their family story, their deep and abiding faith in Jesus, it was indeed an example of choosing joy. Consistently. Constantly. And honestly.
In this passage, God, through Nehemiah, is instructing his people to move from grief to joy. They have been negligent in truly following Yahweh, forgetting to read the scripture, ignoring His laws and ways. Yet, God reminds them to look back and see that they have actually accomplished some amazing things by His strength. They are rebuilding a huge wall around their holy city of Jerusalem. They have persevered through criticism, threats of violence, and just sheer fear and exhaustion. God is proud of them and reminds them to celebrate, even if they don’t presently feel it, choose joy.
The command of God seems strange to us. Go celebrate, enjoy good food and yummy drinks. How does that help? Sometimes we act in a way that directs our heart and mind to deeper truth. We cannot see beyond our circumstances or move pass the hurt or overcome the anxiety. We can become stuck, and though it is real, the pain and fear, God also is the source of gladness in the midst of the hard.
What does choosing joy today look like for you?
December 17 Advent: Joy to the World!
Luke 1:54 (TEV)
“He has kept his promise he made to our ancestors, and has come to the help of his servant Israel.”
So, where are you going to find joy? Jesus’ mom knew! Mary’s song, in Luke 1, should help.
Didn’t think Mary sang? She could; joyously. She’s singing some traditional scripture, but with a fresh treatment. Mary is riffing on a theme (maybe even a tune?) from music by her ancestor (and namesake! Remember Moses’s big sister?) Miriam:
Exodus 35:21 (TEV) “Sing to the Lord, because he has won a great victory; he has thrown the horses and their riders into the sea.”
Maybe Moses has dignity; but Miriam makes an impromptu arrangement for dancing, with tambourines! An instrument made for packing on the Exodus road.1
Mary’s joy is — in what? God! He mopped the floor with the Egyptians; and he’s cleaning house, again. Let that get your joy stirred up! As Augustine said, “the song of Miriam should be our song too.”2 So, why not us?
Perhaps when you were younger, you thought Christmas joy lies under a tree? According to Jean Shepherd, we might find either babyish bunny suits, or toy BB guns: but perhaps not both!3
When she got to Bethlehem (Luke 2:6) could Mary have thought she’d opened the wrong Christmas package? Not likely! When they arrived, the shepherds reported that the angels were singing – like she’d been doing, earlier.
By bringing Jesus to the stage, God was doing what he always was; keeping promises, helping people, and keeping it real. Small wonder Mary gets to solo in God’s big Christmas production. And you can dance to it, too! In Jesus, a savior is born…
Okay, we don’t know the original tune to Miriam’s song or, for Mary’s updated version. Musical notion hadn’t been invented yet! But Joy is available. It’s a tune that’s “a Christmas icon in North America among millions”4 in Issac Watt’s hymn (Georg Friedrich Handel-inspired, but arranged by Lowell Mason), “Joy to the World.”
Listen to a dozen renditions of “Joy to the World” at this link. Neither Miriam nor Mary would recognize the tune (born too early!); But Watt’s lyrics paraphrase David’s Psalm 98; and that one, Mary would know and enjoy!
December 18 Advent: The Joy of Becoming
James 1:2
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds…”
Excuse me? Why would anyone wish trials upon themselves? And what does joy have to do with suffering? During Advent when we reflect on hope, peace, and joy, this can indeed be jarring. The joy in view here isn’t about the suffering. It is about the fruit.
Young children balk at responsibility. A parent tells their child to clean their room. The child throws a tantrum. They have a million reasons why they shouldn’t have to. Yet we inflict responsibility on that child. Why? Because parents think about the future. That child will one day drive a car, have a career, and raise a family. But building that responsibility starts with the trial of a clean room. It is a test they get to take until they pass. And while parents don’t enjoy the tantrums, we do rejoice in growth. When your child really listens and obeys, that breakthrough makes your heart swell. We love our kids. But we also love who they are becoming.
Our Heavenly Father is unmatched in his parenting. He knows exactly when and how to grow us. During Advent we remember how God patiently prepared the world for Christ as his people waited for centuries, often in hardship and silence, God similarly shapes us even when the process is slow and uncomfortable.
James goes on to explain that the testing of our faith develops perseverance. Perseverance has work to do in order to make us mature and complete, not lacking anything. Imagine the pride God must feel to watch his children grow. True, that growth often involves pain. But to God, the pain isn’t worth comparing to who we are becoming.
So, in this Advent season, think back through this year. Did you have any trials? It wasn’t because God was mad at you, or because He didn’t care. Quite the opposite. God knew what he was doing when he took the training wheels off. And He didn’t leave you. God is running behind saying, “That’s my boy. That’s my girl. Look at them go.”
For a father and his child, that moment is pure joy.
December 19 Advent: Keep Practicing Joy
Philippians 4:4 (NIV)
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
My office in currently in the Music Hallway filled with music instructors and student lessons. I get the joy of listening to students practice the piano, guitar, and vocals. So, often the hallway is filled with music and singing. They are practicing with passion and effort a part of their calling. I can tell that sometimes the student is tired or struggling or even frustrated through the repetition or pauses in their practice. They press on even when it’s not easy because they know they are growing in their craft and they can, over time, see improvement.
Advent season, like those practices, is not about performance but preparation. We are reminded as we anticipate the celebration of Christ’s coming that joy is cultivated through repetition, patience, and faithfulness rather than instant results.
In this passage the Apostle Paul writes to encourage his brothers and sisters in the city and church in Philippi to choose joy. He knows their circumstances, and they are not good or easy. Poverty, political persecution, religious bias, and division are addressed in the letter Paul writes to them in chains, confined, and trusting God in the uncertainty.
His repeated call to “rejoice”, is not an empty platitude or ignoring of their circumstances. On the contrary, it is a practice, empowered by prayer, thanksgiving, and trust. He guides them to push through anxiety, to prayer and petition God for help, in a heart-felt posture of gratitude. Pray about your present need by thanking God for his past provision. Include all the details of each situation. God wants to hear it all, and He is near to you. These practices will result in the type of peace only God can offer and will strengthen your heart and fill your mind because of Christ.
Once of my favorite authors wrote, “Joy is peace dancing.” The result of the spiritual exercises described by Paul to the Philippians is a sustaining and disciplined joy. Lord, help me to keep praying, thanking, and trusting, so that in me, this Advent season, peace might dance.
December 20 Advent: Practice Joy
Hebrews 12:1b-2 (NIV)
…And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
As we have shared throughout this devotional, Advent is about anticipation. More often than not we are anticipating something in the short term. Our children, when they were young would get so excited when we were going to a nearby park to play, or we announced we were going to get frozen yogurt at the place where they could mix-in a bunch of candy into their bowl of soft-serve.
We tried to bring that sense of anticipation to December as we got ready for Christmas. We heard of an idea that involved our traditional manger scene my mother gifted to us early in our marriage. It had the usual characters, shepherds, Magi, sheep, a donkey, Mary, and Joseph, and of course Jesus in a small wooden trough. Yet, the key to anticipating the celebration on Christmas Eve was to not place baby Jesus in the manger until everyone went to sleep on the 24th, and even more so, to have Mary and Joseph traveling all month. To depict their traveling to Bethlehem we placed the figurines around the house in a different location each day. Our boys would go explore and find the young couple each day and one who declare, “I found them!” Remember this was before the “Elf on a Shelf’ craze began. It is a wonderful experience of joy watching our boys get excited about what might happen next.
What if Christmas is supposed to not just be a short-term anticipation of joy but also a far off, future one as well? In the passage above, Jesus sees a profound future joy. It is His people; God’s wayward children being brought home by grace; rescued and redeemed through his death on the cross. He could see the culmination of the Kingdom and preview the joy of our forgiveness and new life even when it was still far off (over 2,000 years for us) on the other side of his crucifixion and resurrection.
How can you experience a bit of joy today, even when the culmination of it may still lie on the other side of today’s hardship, pain, and worries? Join Jesus is his vision of a future joy.