And the preparation we need to be about this morning has to do with that last Advent theme, with joy, which of course we all want but which really can be very elusive. I can explain to you intellectually what you already know: that the birth of Jesus is a moment of such great joy because out of love for us, God chose to become like us, one of us, in order to be crystal clear that we are not alone in this world, that God watches out for us, that there is a way to live that brings abundant life, that our sins and mistakes and disappointments are not the end of our story. We can know and understand these reasons for Christmas joy, but what about actually experiencing joy? You all get the reasons, but what about the feeling?
How to feel joy at Christ’s arrival while so near at hand is so much that is not at all joyful? We are a world at war, with conflicts and hurting people everywhere. There are men and women and boys and girls we love who are sick or struggling or just unhappy, and our hearts ache for them. There are bills to pay and work to do and insurance forms to fill out, and the evening news is just one horror story after another. In one way or another, all our hearts know disappointment and betrayal, cynicism and loneliness, and maybe all this Christmas emphasis on joy can make the sting of not feeling it even sharper. We know the “why” of Christmas joy; how do we feel it? And that’s a relevant question not only for Advent and Christmas, but for every day: how do we experience in our hearts the good news we know in our heads, especially when there is so much other real stuff that seems to get in the way?
I cannot guarantee that what I’m about to say will ensure that you feel deep and abiding joy tonight and tomorrow or in the ordinary months ahead, but I have faith that this is the way it can happen for every one of us. Our guides are Mary and Elizabeth, the mothers of Jesus and John the Baptist. Now both women are certainly unique figures with historic, miraculous roles to play in God’s story, but how they came to actually experience the incredible joy told in today’s lesson works much the same way for us.
Like Mary and Elizabeth, you and I choose to believe in a God who can do amazing things, who can heal and comfort and help us overcome obstacles. And also like them, we wait, sometimes we wait more than nine months, we wait a long, long time to see just how God will do those things for us. Like these women, we try to be patient to see how God will respond to our faith. Again, you and I know all this; we try our best to discipline ourselves to surrender to God and to be patient for God to move in ways we can see. But how does that familiar intellectual discipline lead to a real, first-hand experience of joy, the kind that makes Mary and Elizabeth’s babies leap in their wombs, that makes Mary burst out into song praising God?
Sisters and brothers, the feelings of joy come in the encounter itself, the mutual recognition between Elizabeth and Mary that God is powerfully present in the other and that that presence of God is so good. Each woman knows in her heart that she wants to be faithful, and that God will come through in time, but when they come together and share that mutual belief, recognize God’s presence in the other, they connect and connect once more with God, and the good news is magnified through them and overflows into feelings of real joy—not just satisfying understanding, but real happiness, joy, contentment.
No matter if this is a hard time of year for you or one you look forward to all year, if you’re distracted this Advent by problems or totally focused on the Christmas experience, if you’re dreading tonight and tomorrow or can’t wait, real joy becomes possible—anytime—when the faith we hold, however small and tentative or clear and confident it may be, when that faith finds expression and recognition and connection with another. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard described humanity’s greatest problem as “shut-up-ness,” the quality of being locked up in one’s own internal world, keeping to oneself so much that our innermost being, our soul, becomes disconnected, cut off from God and from other people. We do suffer from “shut-up-ness,”—we are private people, and even the most social among us most of the time tend to keep our faith, our fear, and our hope to ourselves. But joy requires—requires—connection, because it is in that connection that the good news becomes real, something more than just a nice idea. All through his life Jesus was far less interested in ideas than in making connections with people, authentic connections that broke open the reality of God all around and within them.
Joy comes in real life when we make the effort to connect with others specifically about God’s presence and goodness in our lives, either by what we say or by what we do. Mary did both: she made the substantial effort to travel a great distance specifically to visit Elizabeth and tell her what God was doing in her life, and there followed joy.
There was a study conducted by Bernard Rimland, director of the Institute for Child Behavior Research, in which participants were asked to list the 10 people they knew best, and identify them as happy or not happy. Then they went through the list again, and labeled those same people as selfish or unselfish, using the definition of selfish as “a stable tendency to devote one’s time and resources to one’s own interests and welfare—and unwillingness to inconvenience oneself for others.” (which sounds to me a lot like Kierkegaard’s shut-up-ness). The results were clear: Rimland found that overwhelmingly the people labeled happy were also labeled unselfish. He wrote, “those whose activities are devoted to bringing themselves happiness… are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy.” In other words, if you want to experience joy, it’s not going to happen by concentrating on yourself, which is the pattern we so often fall into. As it was for Mary and Elizabeth, it is when we think of others and of God before ourselves, because we know that is God’s will for us, that joy has room to become real.
Elizabeth and Mary came together to share good news with each other and the joy that was generated was palpable, as they connected with each other and with that power greater than themselves. And so it is for us: when we share good news, either in what we say or by what we do, we make room inside for joy. Joy comes when our personal versions of the good news, when our reasons for believing life is good find purchase, recognition in another, and theirs in us. But when we keep the good news we know to ourselves, when I am attentive first and foremost to me and my needs, joy is hard to come by.
I don’t believe those faithful connections have to be complicated or dramatic or as theologically eloquent as that of Mary and Elizabeth. I had a meal the other day with a friend and we were both enjoying it and he said to me, “Life is good, isn’t it?” And I shook my head in agreement and there was joy. I visited our friend Dorothea Wiley this week and that woman moves with such grace and confidence and gratitude that being in her presence brought a moment of joy that erased my anxiety about not having my sermon done, and all that I still had to do before Sunday, and how much the mechanic’s bill would be later that afternoon. Sending each other cards at Christmas can become so automatic a tradition that we may overlook the powerful message they make and the real joy they can generate: Our cards say “I’m thinking about you in this holy and important season, and I’m glad that good news includes both of us.” And this year I’ve developed a whole new appreciation for Christmas lights on houses, even those set-ups that are way too much. As I drive down roads and see all the lights on houses, whether the people inside are religious or not doesn’t matter, because the lights sing out that this is a special time of year, a time when something powerful happens and we all have a need to acknowledge that resounding joy for each other—even if it’s only in the form of a string of colored bulbs.
And do you see that the kind of joy we’re talking about, the kind God invites, isn’t dependent upon what’s right and wrong with our lives, or how much pain we’ve been through or are in right now, or if the right presents are given or received? The joy that comes from God, the kind we talk more about at Christmas but which is really an all-the-time invitation, is about God’s power in human life, a power that is always at work but which requires our surrender, our patience and above all our willingness to get over ourselves and connect with others about how we have experienced that same power. In every life, experiencing joy becomes a choice about where our focus is going to be: On ourselves or others? On what’s wrong with the world or what’s right with the world? On God’s ways or the ways of the culture? On all we don’t have or the simple everyday gifts that can bring us to joyful tears if we will stop and notice?
Joy is not limited to Christmas, and the kind that comes from God does not require that life be perfect to feel it. Tonight, tomorrow and every day, Jesus Christ is God’s gift to the world, to you and me. The joy of that gift is ours, if we will simply choose to make room.