During the season of Advent, I offer reflections on hope, peace, joy, and love as the candles of the Advent Wreath are lit.
On Sunday the third candle of the Advent Wreath was lit, symbolizing both joy and John the Baptist. I think back to this past Sunday’s reading from the Gospel of Luke (3:7-18) that opens with John hollering at (or at least speaking with conviction to) his listeners, “You brood of vipers!” Given this, it is difficult to imagine him as one swept up by joy. Perhaps the meaning of the third candle was intended to be an “either/or”.
When I think of joy in the life of an Episcopalian, three rites of passage from our Book of Common Prayer come to mind. The first is the liturgy of Baptism and the prayer the priest says over the newly baptized: “Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen. [BCP p.308] From this we learn that joy might be considered a gift from God.
The next is the opening address in the Celebration and Blessing of Marriage: “The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord.” [BCP p.423] Mutual joy is the first listed of the purposes of Christian marriage, implying that it is of highest priority.
The third is from the rubrics that give advice on the proper tone of the Burial liturgy: “The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too shall be raised. The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." [BCP p.507] The rubrics acknowledge that grief is normative but nonetheless encourage the burial liturgy to have an overtone of joy.
Joy appears to be God’s intent for us but the United Nations’ latest World Happiness Report reveals that “the U.S. is just the 18th happiest country in the world, because of poor health, poor economic mobility, and a lack of social cohesion.” [1] One of the report’s authors (economist Jeffrey Sachs) “blamed social factors for the decline in happiness. He noted how fewer people report feeling they have control over the choices in their lives; that fewer people feel they have others to count on in times of difficulty; that fewer people trust politicians and other public figures; and that, judged by data on charitable giving, people are less generous toward others than they used to be.
“‘America’s crisis is, in short, a social crisis, not an economic crisis,’ Sachs wrote, adding that the social crisis has also not translated into government policy. “‘Almost all of the policy discourse in Washington, D.C., centers on naïve attempts to raise the economic growth rate as if a higher growth rate would somehow heal the deepening divisions and angst in American society.’” [2]
But is happiness co-equal with joy? A Presbyterian pastor offers an interesting perspective, writing: “…happiness is an emotion in which we ‘experience feelings ranging from contentment and satisfaction to bliss and intense pleasure,’ whereas joy ‘is a stronger, less common feeling than happiness.’ We experience joy when we achieve selflessness to the point of personal sacrifice. We feel joy when we are spiritually connected to God or people.”
He continues, “…happiness, as a feeling, is not predicated on something necessarily being good for us. Joy, on the other hand, is at least grounded in the idea that something is good for someone else. We have joy when -- even in our suffering -- we are acting toward someone else's well-being. If you have ever selflessly given of yourself or that which you own you are certainly familiar with this feeling.” [3] Said differently, joy appears to have a relational component as part of its recipe for being—relationship with others or with God.
How do we get this “stronger, less common feeling”? A website dedicated to joy [DesiringGod.org] some years ago featured an article in which the author mined Holy Scripture in an attempt to answer this question. He asserted that joy was taught by Jesus (see the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke, specifically Luke 6:22-23). He said that joy comes as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22); that joy comes from belonging to the Kingdom of God (Romans 14:17); that joy comes from faith or believing in God (Romans 15:13); that it comes from seeing and knowing Jesus as Lord (Philippians 4:4); that it can be found through relationship with other Christians (2 Corinthians 1:24); and that it can arise through successfully navigating times of tribulation (James 1:2-4). [4] These are helpful reminders but even so the pursuit of joy can be far from easy.
Challenging as it can be to find joy in a world beset by problems, “Joy,” insist the authors of DesiringGod.org “is not optional. It’s essential.” They maintain that “God’s ultimate goal in the world (his glory) and our deepest desire (to be happy) are one and the same because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Not only is God the supreme source of satisfaction for the human soul, but God himself is glorified by our being satisfied in him. Therefore, our pursuit of joy in him is essential.” [5]
To rejoice is to feel or show great joy, and in this Advent time of waiting and expecting for God to take on human flesh and come among us, the refrain from the Advent hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” offers yet one more reminder that joy is part of our birthright as creatures of God:
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/40544341/america-desperate-for-happiness-is-getting-less-and-less-happy
If you’d like to read the World Happiness Report you can access it here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/CH2-WHR-lr.pdf
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://www.islandpacket.com/living/religion/article33609807.html
[4] https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/where-does-joy-come-from
[5] https://www.desiringgod.org/topics/christian-hedonism
