thesoulpurposedotorg

A century or two ago, this season called Advent was a time of repentance with fasting and prayers of confession; not exactly the things we associate with joy. Christmas was a feast day but things like Santa Clause and Christmas trees and stockings hung on the mantel with care were considered to be pagan rituals and not becoming for Christians. My mother even recalls her pastor in the 1940’s pounding the pulpit and loudly proclaiming that anyone with a Christmas tree in thier home was surely destined for perdition. In those higher churches that honored Advent as a time of spiritual preparation for the coming Christ Child, this was a time of emptying oneself, an inner housecleaning of sorts, to make room in one’s heart for Jesus. This dismal self-flagellation became too depressing in the midst of winter so the third Sunday of Advent became a day of Joy, designated so by the pink candle in the Advent wreath.
Joy is actually much harder to come by than simply lighting a pink candle, isn’t it? It is much deeper than happiness. It has nothing to do with circumstances that we regard as blessings. And circumstances we regard as awful cannot take away the joy of God’s presence.
I have been surprised by joy. The fullness of the joy of life in Christ has mostly come to me in times of loss and grief. I look back on a time in which I had lost everything – my house, my profession, my children’s emotional closeness, my health, my friends, my church – and I wonder why I wasn’t more depressed than I was. I actually remember that time as a time of deep peace and the joy of being, a reprieve from “doer.” Sometimes I think the more we have to occupy ourselves the less we have room to be occupied by the source of all joy.