A Different Take on Joy

“Secular Christmas, with its enthusiastic sparkles, dumps us into the cold gray of January. Christian joy is much weightier, more durable”.*  Whew. Fitting indeed is the Lord’s timing, governing just precisely which day and at which time on that day I would read that particular entry in the Advent book I chose – almost on impulse, a rare thing indeed for me – for this year.

That first sentence is a concise summary of all that I find distasteful about Christmas: it is a superficial mask that barely hides the dismal underlayer of grime. And yet we are told that it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Fake sparkles, indeed –  it’s called “holiday cheer” – to cover up the gray, much like cheap perfume, with noxious fumes all of its own, applied in a vain attempt to cover up the lingering stench of a cigarette habit. Peace and joy, words scattered haphazardly throughout department stores and even our church services,  but so often without the context or depth that makes them impactful when the lights are switched off and we are left with the cold gray of January.

It’s not only January. That cold gray is where we live, and not just for a few weeks out of the year, rather, where we take up our residence as sojourners for our lifetime, often forgetting that at heart we are displaced citizens, temporary landless wage earners trudging through the wilderness until at least we reach the Promised Land. Sweet Beulah Land indeed, and how much sweeter for the contrast with January.

The peace and joy of Christmas extends far beyond the cheery greetings that seem to convey that all around us is merry and bright. We know, all too well, that all is NOT merry and bright. We look around, and we see the truly broken world in which we live, the January gray poking through the lights and tinsel and wrapping, and we recognize it for what is. We smell the smoke through the perfume. Death, disease, distress, distraction, depression – all surround us, the gray bleeding through the sparkles. Sometimes, even a focus on an infant in a manger feels like more enthusiastic sparkles than true joy.

Where is that Christian joy to be found, with its durability and weight? The joy, today anyway, comes in when we look at all that surrounds us, and we say – grimly perhaps, maybe a little defiantly, definitely honestly, and often through tears of sadness and longing and hope deferred but not extinguished – that it will not always be so. Jesus didn’t come to earth so we would endure cold gray January forever, and it’s ok to look past the baby in the manger. That’s where it started, but thank the Lord that’s not where it ends. Look beyond Him, to the man on the cross. Look beyond Him, to the ascended and risen Lord. Look beyond Him, to the returning victorious King. The one whose return is promised, who will not just pull together the jagged edges of a broken world but who will make all things new. The one who wipes away all tears from our eyes, and dwells in the midst of His people. There’s the hope and the joy of Christmas, that doesn’t just cover up the gray, but banishes it: having loved His own, He loves us through to the end, not just of His human life, not just of our lives, but to the end of the world and of time.

*The Weary World Rejoices, edited by Melissa Kruger, and published by The Gospel Coalition, print edition, p64