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“Joy to the world!” I can’t hear those words without hearing Clark Griswold singing them as he flips the switch that will turn his house into a joyful luminous display for the entire neighborhood. Only it doesn’t. The lights don’t come on! And that’s what this year has been like. We flip the switch, but the joy doesn’t come!
2020 has shown us that we need to build our joy on a better foundation. Many things on which we relied for joy have been altered or removed. The result is greater anxiety and frustration or even depression or worse. How can we find a foundation for joy that can weather the storms of a year like 2020?
God has an answer for that: Christmas. Christmas is all about joy. It is about a source of joy that transcends all our circumstances.
A month ago, My Dad sent me the Advent resources of the Wesleyan Church. The first item was a banner, and it had the words from that Christmas classic, “O Holy Night”: “The Weary World Rejoices.” I thought, “Wow! They really captured the sentiment of Christmas this year!”
In the next three sermons, I want you to see how Christmas provides a foundation for joy that the world cannot take away. I want to tell you why a weary world can rejoice. I also want you to see how we can make that joy a greater part of our lives all year long. In Mary’s encounter with Elizabeth, we discover the joy that Christmas brings.
Mary’s Doubts
There is a similarity between Mary and Zechariah in Luke 1. They both encounter an angel. They both did not expect a child. They both respond to the angel’s birth announcement with a question.
In the account of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, his question is an expression of doubt. The result is that he is unable to speak until the child is born.
The angel told Mary that she would conceive and give birth to a son. I also think Mary has some doubts and apprehensions. She responded with words similar to those of Zechariah: “‘How will this be,’” Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?'” (Luke 1:34). Her first response was a question, not rejoicing.
After she thought about it, she might have had a great deal of anxiety about the situation. After all, being pregnant without being married in that society was no minor problem. Her society would have rejected her and shamed her. Mary’s situation would have been very difficult, if not dangerous. And, what would her fiancé think?
These fears came to fruition based on what we read in Matthew 1. Joseph, upon learning of Mary’s pregnancy, resolved to end their engagement. It took a visit from another angel to convince Joseph that what Mary said about her pregnancy was true.
So, it is not surprising that her response to the angel is rather muted. “‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled'” (Luke 1:38).
We should not underestimate the fears and apprehensions that Mary would have faced. The announcement of the angel did not lead Mary to a firm confidence that God would fill her with good things. The announcement did not lead her to rejoice. Instead, it may very well have caused greater anxiety.
And where are you, this morning? Are you filled with anxiety? Have you lost your confidence that God will fill you with good things? If so, you are not alone. Every saint who has experienced the triumph of assurance has had to first do battle with the anxiety of uncertainty. Life is hard, and it is a struggle. We face many challenges to living a good and joyful life of service to the world. It will only come after many experiences of God’s grace and the ensuing struggle to make it part of our hearts and lives. Anyone who tells you otherwise is misled and misleading.
Elizabeth’s Assurance
But God did not leave his maidservant in this position. After she heard this announcement, she went to Judea to the home of Elizabeth, a relative of hers.
She greeted Elizabeth, and the baby, John the Baptist, leaped in her womb for joy. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she said:
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her! (Luke 1:42–45).
God gave Mary this miraculous confirmation of His word. The angel had spoken, but the face and words of Elizabeth and the baby John the Baptist leaping confirmed it in a powerful way. It confirmed the truth that God was going to fill Mary with good things and through her the whole world!
And that’s what Christmas is all about. It is about the transcendent God breaking into the world in a way that will cause joy for all people. The joy of Christmas reminds us that there is an assurance of good things beyond the touch of the world. It is a joy that goes beyond all that is in us and all that is in the world that would cause us to doubt it.
That’s the sort of assurance that Elizabeth gave Mary. I want you to notice something that I never noticed until I started preparing this sermon. Mary’s response to the angel is one of faith but it is not really one of joy. It is only after she encounters Elizabeth that she is filled with joy.
And this demonstrates the role that we can play in each other’s lives. We can know of the miraculous work of God, but we often doubt that God will fill us with good things. When we speak to each other of the good news of God’s grace and goodness, then we can help each other to rejoice in God our Savior. We need to share our experiences of God’s love and joy with each other. That is also a big part of the Christmas story, sharing God’s love with one another!
Mary’s Song
What is it that keeps us from joy? It is the stories that we tell ourselves. The stories that we tell ourselves shape our emotions.
Here are some of our storylines. No one cares about me. Evil always triumphs. I don’t get to and won’t get to enjoy good things. I don’t have support. Have you told yourself any of these stories this year? I know have. Many times. And these are the stories that rob us of joy.
What Mary did was tell herself a different story. That’s what her song is all about. Instead of “no one cares about me,” she says, “he has been mindful of me” (Luke 1:48). Instead of “evil always triumphs,” she says, “he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts” (Luke 1:51). Instead of “I don’t and won’t experience good,” she says, “He has filled the hungry with good things” (Luke 1:53). Instead of “I don’t have support,” she says, “He has helped his servant Israel” (Luke 1:54). It is the clear sight of these promises that lead her to say, “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46).
Those storylines have the power to change the way we view all of life. If we can get different stories into our heads, we will start to feel joy. I want to tell you, though, that this does not come easy. The old stories readily dominate our heads and hearts, especially when our anxiety goes up. We have to battle for joy.
That’s why Mary puts it into a song. It helps her to remember. In order for something to become a part of our hearts and lives, it has to be repeated over and over again. It has to go deeply into our hearts and minds through constant communion with it. It has to be applied to new situations. It’s not enough to learn and hear it once. You’ve got to make it part of you through meditation. That’s why the Bible says to meditate and not simply to read. Memorizing and songs can help us change the way we think about the world. They can get the messages into our hearts that will give us the joy that the world cannot take away.
Conclusion
This has been a hard year. I wish I could say that the church in this country has been at the forefront of being an agent of hope, of service, and of joy. But I do not think it has been. That’s not to say that there has been no light, but it’s not the light that we could have shone on this world.
Too often we have simply joined in the way of the world. We have been more ready to accuse than to listen. We have been paralyzed rather than reaching out. We have given in to despair rather than digging deep into the joy of the Gospel.
Christmas is an opportunity to reset. We can only really serve well when we have joy in our hearts. We are made for joy, and we are made to serve. We should ask, what is keeping us from our joy? What has kept us from joy this year? Why has it? What could we have as a better foundation? Another way to get at this is, when have I not been able to serve? What has kept me from that? That’s where we can dig deep.
Christmas is an opportunity to reset our joy, if we will take it. We can replace the song of 2020 with the song of Mary. We can see that whatever happens to us in the world, the truth is that God fills the hungry with good things. That’s the opportunity of Christmas. It will be a hard fought victory, but with God’s grace, thoughtful reflection, helpful friends, and God’s word, we can learn to sing from the heart, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47).