Everyone’s waiting for something. For the Christian, we eagerly await the second coming of our Savior. During this season of Advent -- the expectant anticipation of our Lord’s second coming in our celebration of His first arrival -- we are once more stopped in our tracks, jolted out of the everyday mundane with “Don’t be afraid! I bring you good news of great joy, which is for all people!”
As we continue our journey through Advent, we are diving into this message from the angel to the shepherds. Why shouldn’t we fear? What is the good news? What makes it so joyful? Did he really mean for all people?
Joy—The Foundation of the World
It’s a cold winter night, and the streets of Manhattan look bleak. We serve a meal at 6 pm and everything is already dark. I pass the restaurants in our area—all of them have constructed wooden overhangs so people can eat outside, so that the owners can make at least a little money and still employ a few people.
However, tonight the tables are all empty. It is just too cold. A couple of weeks ago the mayor announced the schools would all be closed—no one knew for how long. Now, schools are opening up once more. But still, no one knows for how long. Stay open, stay closed. Go out, stay in. No one knows.
But people at Graffiti are still outside, handing out hot food. Not many people come, but the ones who do seem desperate to make some connection. We talk, we laugh, and we make jokes. It’s their laughter I will remember.
Luke 2:10 “But the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. I bring you good news that will bring joy to all people.”
That scene must have been a dark night too. And everyone always has problems—those workers were in a colonized country with high taxes and a harsh political king. Shepherds at the time were not the most revered profession. And yet there was joy.
Two things I am noticing in this season. First, there is a connection between joy and strength. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” Nehemiah 8:10. If the devil wants to take our strength, he will first work to rob us of joy, and I suppose that could include laughter (and even jokes).
The second thing is this—joy is foundational. When God finally appeared to Job—and no doubt Job had had a horrible time—God asks a series of questions. One of the first questions was this—"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth…when the morning stars sang together and all the children of God shouted for joy?”-- (Job 38:4,7).
When the morning stars sang together and all the children of God shouted for joy. There’s that word again—joy, present at the very foundation of creation. There is often joy when something new starts, when light comes out of darkness. Perhaps that joy at newness was happening there in the night with the shepherds, when something so new was coming into the world.
And perhaps that is what we are still listening for in the laughter on a dark cold night on the streets of New York City in December.