Rejoice!

Hot off the heels of repentance, comes rejoicing!  This is something that, God bless us, as human beings, we aren't really used to.  We'd like to hope that we are, of course, but we really, desperately aren't.  Joy is something that, unless you're Riley, you're not used to.  That is, we aren't used to the feeling, the experience of joy, and we try to make up for it.  We try to make up for it by making do with happiness instead.

But happyness is not joy.  You'd never know it, but that's the real deal.  Happinesss and joy are two different things, and they don't meet up always.  They're easy to mistake for one another, but as Denis
Leary says 'happiness comes in small portions.  It's a cigarette, or a chocolate chip cookie.  You smoke the butt, you eat the cookie, you go to sleep, you get up in the morning, and you go to work.  There you go.'  Cynical, but there you go.  And as such, the happiness that we seek is by definition fleeting, and it gets away from us pretty quickly.  And what we do when we substitute happiness for joy is to swap the permanent for the fleeting. No wonder we're all so frustrated!

Rejoice always, says Philippians, Again, I say rejoice!  What do we rejoice in?  We rejoice in the Lord.  We rejoice in his presence, and in his promises.  And his promises are what makes this time of year have a veneer of joy.  It's what makes this time of year a time of joy instead of a time of drudgery. 

Otherwise, it would be the opposite.  Have you ever pondered what this time of year is all about, really?  It's all about a bunch of really heavy things.  You have so much to do, and so little time.  And as the things that you have to do this year close in, you can be forgiven a distinct lack of joy in your life.  It seems unlikely that any of us can sustain happiness in the face of the responsibilities of this season.  But the pressures the difficulties, that's where we end up missing the forest for the trees.

I'll elaborate.  At this time of year, there are a great many things to do, lots of stuff to take care of, and these things that we end up doing, well, they're like the anchor, the bailing bucket, the rope, the steering wheel, the oars and the fishing rods, all of which are great as long as you're in a boat.

The way the Bible talks about it, we are to seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto us, and that all sounds hopelessly backwards, doesn't it?  Doesn't it sound topsy turvy to imagine that God would ask us to seek first his kingdom, then the joy, the happiness, the family, all that will follow?  Well, that means that getting the first detail right makes all the rest of them matter.  Think of that like the boat, like the canoe, in that if you have that, then the anchor, the bailing bucket, the oars, the fishing rods, they're all wonderful helps, but without the boat, you'll just drown faster trying to hold them all.

The baby in the manger colours everything.  He changes how we feel about everything, how we relate to everything, what everything in our lives means.  It provides us with joy, the real joy that surpasses all understanding.  Christ provides us with the promise of eternity, gives us the guarantee of forever.  In him, and with him, we have the promise that we are and will be forever people.  That makes not just this holiday season, but all year round, into more meaningful, impactful times. 

As the offertory says 'grace our table with your presence and give us a foretaste of the feast to come.' That's what this time is, that's what this is all about, which is a foretaste of the feast to come, the feast everlasting.  The promise of eternity, of paradise, is what makes what we do here so meaningful, it's what changes our Christmas dinners from being a family gathering to a foretaste of heaven.  It's what changes our office gift exchange from being a fumbling awkward swap of trinkets, to the bestowal of gifts from the Magi to Christ.  It's what changes the interaction with the waitress at the fifteenth meal out this week from drudge and small talk, to talking with the saints of God.  I'm not overstating the case, either.  This is real, and it's what really happens. Once the rock of Christ has been built up on, then everything else means more.  The people you see are eternal, your decisions consequences, the gifts you give, though quickly forgotten, will be an act of eternal charity.  The meals you prepare, though tasted albeit briefly, have fed the saints of God, and no one who gives one of these little ones a cup of water in Christ's name will lose his reward.

Jesus is the reason for the season, the reason for our joy.  And like all things that bring us joy, he spills the bounds that we have set for him, and colours everything else.  All other things in our lives are made more meaningful and impactful due to his work on the cross.  Because he lives, we shall live also, baptized into his death, we are also baptized into his resurrection.  Bear that in mind when you sit down for Christmas dinner - this is but a glimpse, a foretaste, a picture of everlasting life that Christ offers.

That's what lets us rejoice.