Advent: Joy

There is a familiar scene in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. It is the day after Christmas and Bob Cratchit comes into Ebenezer Scrooge’s office about 18 minutes late. Scrooge bellows and mockingly berates him for his tardiness. Cratchit’s excuse was “I was making rather merry yesterday, Sir”. I will apply Cratchit’s line to my tardiness in getting this installment on advent Joy out a bit late. I have gratefully had the opportunity to make merry with family this past week. And get favorable results on medical tests.

I was called out on my tardiness tonight. It gave me joy to believe others kinda look forward to these seasonal reflections. And that is a good thing, it leads me to look at the message of this book, and to discover again what the essence of joy might be. What Bob Cratchit does not yet know is the powerful transformation that came over Scrooge Christmas Eve night and how he was changed. I love the George C Scott movie version scene on his bed when he awakes realizing he is still alive, and the sheer exuberance he displays, an old man jumping up and down and laughing. He has seen the error of his ways and realizing he has a chance to ‘make right’ his joy knows no bounds. He had over time increasingly pursued wrong or misguided goals, and had become cynical, selfish and miserly. God granted him the opportunity for a do over. The past, both the good and the pain aren’t swept away but channeled into new higher purpose. Scrooge gives joyously of his means and takes Tiny Tim under his wing, even restores relationship with his nephew. It’s not too late!

C S Lewis similarly chronicled the events in his life that led to his conversion and total surrender to Christ in his book “Surprised by Joy”. Childhood faith, disillusionment, atheism as he went through ‘higher education’ and experience in world war 1. But it all left him unsatisfied. He came to see joy as unrealized spiritual longing. The need for it can be sensed through events or scenes of great pleasure: great music, a wonderful landscape tender times with others, alternately through intense pains, losses and regrets. Lewis stated “joy is an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction”. A sense that we are made for more. And later some 20 years after writing the book he met and married a woman named Joy. Shortly thereafter she developed cancer and after 3 year remission died. These emotions too he captured in “A grief observed” at her passing.

“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”

But his joy was not snatched away.

What is joy to you? Meditate on it. Without further comment I offer a couple of scriptures to assist in answering

Habakkuk 3:17-18 [17] Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, [18] yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17

Both Dickens and Lewis describe for us that it is a painful journey that leads to joy. And Joy once experienced requires regular nurturing and attendance. The devil wants to snatch it away. And that is why it is good that annually we celebrate advent Joy meanwhile nurturing it in our daily lives. Unrealized spiritual longing.