Advent Reflections: Joy

A couple of years ago we looked at the four traditional themes of Advent: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell ('The Four Last Things'). This year we're going to look at another set of Advent themes: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. As the theme of this year's Advent course is Hope (and it was the theme of my November magazine article!), we'll look at the other three. This week it's Joy.

 At Christmas we are bombarded with images of joy: the joy of children opening their presents, the joy of families and friends getting together, the joy of a few days off work! And we all have an understanding of what joy feels like: it's like happiness only better; it's happiness that wells up from deep within us and bursts out with smiles, shouts and even singing.

The third Sunday of Advent sometimes has the theme of Joy, which is why some churches light a pink rather than a purple candle on this Sunday. Purple is the liturgical colour of Advent (and Lent) because it signifies a season of reflection and repentance. The pink candle reminds us that although we're still in that penitential season, the joy of Christmas cannot help bubbling up and lightening that purple to pink. Therefore the third Sunday of Advent is sometimes called Gaudete Sunday, from the mediaeval Latin hymn made famous by SteeleyeSpan in the 1970s, whose lyrics are “Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus, ex Maria virgine, gaudete!” - “Rejoice, rejoice! Christ has been born out of the Virgin Mary – rejoice!”

But the Christmas joy isn't just the usual joy of a baby being born, nor is it just the birth of a significant person. The angel said to the shepherd “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you” (Luke 2:10-11). The joy of Christmas is the joy of a Saviour being born, and it was this that made the shepherds rush to Bethlehem, leaving their flocks, and after finding Jesus they “returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen” (Luke 2:20).

Just like the association of Christmas with joy, we tend to associate Jesus with the word 'Saviour', but to get the true Christmas joy we need to really grasp what it means for Jesus to be Saviour and not just the Saviour but our Saviour. We were created to be in relationship with God, but our sin means that we should be eternally separated from God. There is nothing we can do to put this situation right, because none of us can be sinless. Thus we face an eternity separated from the one person, God, who gives our life true meaning and makes us fully human. The angel's announcement of the birth of a Saviour is therefore truly good news that will cause great joy for all the people – it means that now we can live life as we are supposed to live it, with God.

Jesus is the Saviour of the world, but he is also Saviour for each of us personally, because we each need to allow him to be our Saviour. Each of us needs to decide how we respond to the news of the birth of our Saviour, we can either treat it as another Christmas fairy story, or we can take the opportunity to have the joy that comes from knowing our sins have been forgiven and that God will meet our deepest needs.

One more thing: this is not just joyful news for us humans. Jesus would later say that every time a sinner repents there is rejoicing in heaven (Luke 15:1-32). The angels rejoice at the possibility that we can be saved, but more than that God himself rejoices when we turns back to him, because he longs for us more than we can possibly know.