Anytime I think of that Christmas phrase Joy to the World! I think of this photo I encountered on a greeting card some years ago. Unbridled joy is beaming out of the child on the bicycle, in the snow, no less! The child’s hands must be cold as he grips the handlebars, but the freshness of first snow, riding a bicycle—he is laughing with delight. Joy to the World!
We were made for this kind of delight. Children, which we all were at one time, are often seen as the embodiment of this kind of delight, when the world is new and fresh, and all seems “right.”
We have a Creator who took delight in bringing about beautiful and delightful things and instilled in created things the capacity for that delight.
What brings you delight? When is the last time you experienced joy?
Joy seems to be harder to come by, as we open our eyes up to the less-delightful things of the world. Caring for others, caring for Creation, and trying to “be the good we wish to see in the world” has a way of wearing us thin. We may go long moments without experiencing joy, and we may even find ourselves believing that it just doesn’t exist anymore.
The Bible talks about a kind of stubborn joy that we can experience together, in Romans 5. “We are full of joy even when we suffer. We know that our suffering gives us the strength to go on. The strength to go on produces character. Character produces hope. And hope will never bring us shame. That’s because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. This happened through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
The Christmas season brings us back to the bigger story of God’s love for all of creation. It’s not lost on me that in coming to earth, God doesn’t become just human, God becomes a baby, a child. As a child, Jesus would have been opened up to the world of delight, of joy. The life of Jesus included moments of delight in flowers and in birds and in friendships, and times of deep hardship walking alongside hurting people.
As we walk alongside one another, in friendship, in doing hard things together, those words from the book of Romans call us back to Joy. When I think of the apostle Paul’s words in Romans 5 what comes to mind is the phrase – a stubborn kind of joy. Stubborn, persistent, determined. I feel like this passage is saying: “We’re not going to quit. We’re doing this together.
