Building Joy Among The Sorrow

The greatest Christmas story ever told is of God breaking through the darkness in our lives with a light that restores, redeems, and transforms us from the inside out.

For all its cheer, Christmas can still cause us to feel more joyless than ever. While all the lights and festivities should make us want to sing and rejoice, many are struggling to find any glad tidings of comfort and joy.
 
Last week I said, the incarnation was not a one-time event. Although Christmas comes once a year, Christ is born every day in us.

No matter how difficult life might seem, we can rejoice knowing Christ has already come. And Christ will come again. Jesus is our Emmanuel, God with us. As we gather together in his name, let us rejoice in the Lord always.

Nothing gets me in Christmas spirit like listening to A Charlie Brown Christmas by the legendary jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi. This timeless album was the soundtrack to the 1965 holiday classic of the same name, which was a staple in my house.
 
But did you know it was the Coca-Cola company who commissioned Charles Schulz to create this Christmas special around his famous comic strip, Peanuts?
 
This beloved story follows Charlie Brown, a kid who always waffles in that space between melancholy and hopeful optimism. In one of those in-between spaces, our hero admits he’s having trouble finding joy in the Christmas season. His friend Linus replies, “Charlie Brown, you’re the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.”
 
Sometimes finding the Christmas spirit can be difficult. Sometimes it takes a good soundtrack to put you in the mood. Other times it takes a friend, or a community to do it. When Charlie Brown can’t shake that despondent feeling,
 
Lucy suggests he direct the neighborhood Christmas play to lift his spirits. And that’s when things go south for him. You see, the problem with that idea is no one ever listens to Charlie Brown muchless follows his direction.
 
When he buys a tiny, scrappy tree as the centerpiece of the play, everyone, including his beloved dog Snoopy, laughs and ridicules him. Poor Charlie Brown hits rock bottom, and Linus takes the spotlight to recites the Christmas story verbatim from the book of Isaiah.“For unto us a child is born…unto a son is given…”
 
Hearing God’s word transforms the group, who rally together and decorate the tree as a gift to their beleaguered director. By a simple act of kindness, our hopeless hero rediscovers his joy. The closer we get to Christmas, the easier it is to feel like Charlie Brown. The stress and pressure to feel happy can overshadow whatever joy we manage to find. But as Linus reminded us, we have God’s Word to guide us through the hardest times. 

Here's what the Apostle Paul had to say in his letter to the church in Philippi:​

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. ​The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.          Philippians 4:4-7

“Rejoice in the Lord always” and “Do not worry about anything.” Really?

Clearly, Paul never had to scramble for last minute gifts. Or pray for a miracle to reorder the postal service so they arrive on time! If this letter were written today, we’d write the Apostle off as being hopelessly naïve or overly optimistic.
 
Sure Paul never lost a child to a fentanyl overdose. And he never struggled to hold a job to keep from losing his home. But he knew the pain of true suffering.

Paul had taken his fair share of beatings for his faith. He had been thrown off a ship, whipped, mocked, and arrested more times than a common criminal. In fact, this letter was written in prison where Paul had no idea if he was going to live or die.
 
Despite all this, he still found a way to ‘rejoice.’ Paul knew that in Christ, God is reordering the human heart from the inside out. Which tells me that wherever there’s sorrow, there is God. Where God is, there is the light of hope and peace and joy shining brightly.
 
Notice I didn’t say happiness. We often get anxious this time of year because we equate joy with happiness. They are not the same thing.

​Happiness lives in the head. It comes and goes depending on your experience or mood. Joy is permanent. It lingers in our heart because it is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And even though we always have the Spirit of joy within us, it doesn’t mean we’ll always be happy.
 
Corporations, like Coca-Cola, spend billions of dollars to get us to think otherwise. The line, “Have a Coke and a smile,” only proves my point that happiness is conditional. I’m smiling as long as I have a Coke. All that changes once the bottle is empty.

Pursuing happiness often proves to be a fruitless endeavor. Drugs, work, exercise, sex, material wealth, and even religion only offer temporary happiness at best.

But here’s the good news, “Joy does not depend on the ups and downs of the circumstances of our lives,” wrote Henri Nouwen. “Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world.”
 
Paul can rejoice, even in prison, because his joy isn’t tied to his circumstances. It’s rooted in God’s unconditional love for him. We can rejoice knowing that all the sorrow in the world could never take God’s love away from us.
 
That’s the lesson of another Christmas classic: How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

It’s about a tiny-hearted curmudgeon who lives in a cave above the land of Whoville. From his craggy hole, the Grinch looks down on the Whos joyfully celebrating the season.

​Wanting to put an end to their merriment, the Grinch sets out to steal their Christmas by sneaking into Whoville and taking all the presents and decorations.
 
In the morning, he’s shocked to hear, not crying and woes coming from the village below, but more singing and rejoicing being lifted up to heaven. The people of Whoville remind us that the joy of Christmas isn’t about material things. But a deep connection we have with our spiritual source. That Christ light within us.
 
True joy comes from a heart that has bee made and reordered by God’s love for us. A love that shines so brightly, the darkness could not over take it. Once the Grinch realized this, his heart was transform - growing three sizes larger.
 
If, for whatever reason, you’re feeling like Charlie Brown or the Grinch, struggling to find joy in your life, I hope that you can remember what Jesus says loud and clear, “In the world you will have troubles, but rejoice, I have overcome the world.”
 
Sorrow and sadness do not have the final word. God does. God’s light is greater than all the darkness. God’s truth is more powerful than all human deceit. God’s love is stronger than death. In Christ, God’s eternal joy is born. And given to the world without asking anything from us.
 
This is the greatest Christmas story ever told. The story of God breaking through the darkness in our lives with a light that restores, redeems, and transforms us from the inside out.

With the light of divine love, the very light of Christ given to us to guide our way, we can build a community of love in the space between what is and what will be.
 
And in that community, all can rejoice, and find peace and hope and love. So let us go out into Anamesa - joining our Christ lights together in all the ways we love God, love others, and serve both.

Let us shine so wildly and fiercely that all who look at us will be drawn to his joy an rejoice in his name, now and forever, Amen.
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