Christianity Doesn't Exist Without Joy

This week’s Advent theme is joy. I’ve been at Union Baptist Church over a year and I realized I preached an Advent sermon on joy last year. So, I went to the archives, pulled out my text and read it. Here is how I defined joy in 2008:
Joy is a lot like faith; it is a choice. It is having the faith to step into and hold on to the light. Joy is the light that shines when all other lights fail.
Eh, not bad. I don’t hate it. I used a lightness and darkness theme throughout the sermon and said joy is, “choosing the light.” I still think this is a good word. It preaches. It puts the responsibility of joy in our hands.

But I can’t help but think, “Yeah, God’s light is a light that darkness can’t overcome, but how big is God’s light? Sometimes I feel like I’m in the dark all the time.”

So my 2008 definition seems a little weak. It’s comforting to a point, but I think it also overlooks a very real truth for us: When we find ourselves in dark places of the soul, the light of God helps, but our minds still hold the capacity to convince us that we still are not safe.

Think about it, when a person experiences sheer anguish – holding on to the light is good but it doesn’t always speak to the situation at hand. Darkness is still all around. My point is there are moments in life when we need something bigger to speak to our situation. We need a Savior. We need a Lord. We need something we can be rescued by . . . But what is going to look like?

Maybe pushing through the pain, trudging through the unanswering darkness is the road to joy. Maybe joy is more than just holding on to a light, maybe, it’s the actually walking through the night. Walking until the savior comes, walking knowing full well that savior will come.

In 2008, I said joy was the light of the Lord. In 2009, I say I don’t really know what joy is. I don’t know how to define it. C.S. Lewis in his book, Surprised by Joy, says it is an, “unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” I love this quote. Joy is unsatisfying for it is strange and random but that dissatisfaction is more desirable than anything satisfied.

Joy doesn't immediately turn out darkness into light. But that’s okay. It actually doesn’t satisfy anything. Joy makes us hungry, desiring, and expecting.

Joy is a craving. When we get it, we want more of it. It makes us move towards God. It makes us want to sing. It makes us want to rejoice. It makes us want to live, to be fully present, fully alive, and fully human.

Joy, when found, seeps it’s way into every fabric of our humanity. It changes us. It rescues us. It is what we use to worship God. It is the gift we give to others. It is the gift Mary and Joseph were given at the first Christmas. For joy comes from God, and in God we have Christianity. So Christianity doesn’t exist without joy.

I know what it feels like. I just wish I knew what it was. But I don’t care, because I never want to live without it.

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