[I am grateful for the Sermon Series Kit Rediscover Christmas. This manuscript relies heavily on that series.]
Rediscover Joy
Matthew 2, Luke 1
Good morning! Please turn in your Bible to Luke 1. We’re also going to jump over to Matthew 2 for a little bit, but we’re going to mostly camp out in Luke 1.
Introduction: What Comes to the Surface Depends on what’s inside.
Have you ever been to Yellowstone National Park? It’s an amazing, beautiful place! And such a unique place! It’s no wonder it was the first national park established in the world. In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act that set aside Yellowstone as a protected treasure.
Yellowstone is unique in that it has the largest concentration of geysers on the entire planet. Over half of the world’s known active geysers are in Yellowstone National Park. The park basically sits on top of a huge supervolcano brewing beneath the earth’s surface. And all over the park, this brewing heat works its way to the surface and forces its way through the earth.
Probably the most famous geyser in the park and maybe the world, Old Faithful shoots and spurts huge fountains of water and steam up to 180 feet in the air. The geyser erupts about 20 times a day.
And then there are the muddy geysers called the mudpots. These are the cauldrons of goo somewhere between liquid and solid. They’re kind of like a pot of oatmeal simmering on a stove. These geysers burble and burp and boil, releasing bubbles of heat and gas and superheated mud into the air.
And then there’s the Grand Prismatic Spring. It’s the largest hot spring in the U.S. But unlike Old Faithful, which just explodes, the hot spring bubbles up and spreads out. And because the ground around the spring is rich with iron oxide and other colorful minerals, the Grand Prismatic spring has all these breathtaking colors.
OK, so why am I talking so much about geysers this morning? Because geysers remind me of a fundamental truth. Whenever there is pressure, there has to be some way to release that pressure. All of Yellowstone is like the vent cap on a pressure cooker. Without some way to vent the superheated water underground probably the entire state of Wyoming would just explode.
But the second fundamental truth is this: Whatever is beneath the surface will be what rises to the top when the pressure builds. It could be just hot water, like Old Faithful.
It could just be superheated, muddy sludge and toxic gases, like the mud pots.
Or, could be brilliant colors, like at the Grand Prismatic spring, It could be water so dense with minerals that every time it comes to the surface, it helps to build something beautiful. This is the Fly Geyser in Nevada (which I know looks like the fountain at a miniature golf course, but trust me, this is real!). This one actually started forming about a hundred years ago, when a rancher was drilling for irrigation water and opened up a geothermal pocket. And there’s a species of brightly colored algae that apparently thrives with superheated water.
Maybe you can see where this is going now. This year, 2020, we’ve been subjected to more pressure than maybe any time in our lifetimes. And we’ve all felt at various times that we were just about to explode. So let’s get back to that fundamental, basic truth:
What is below the surface is what will rise to the top when the pressure builds. There are probably some times this year when you’ve just wanted to blow off some steam, like Old Faithful. Or maybe there’s been times when the frustration or the anger or the fear has built up and you’ve just spewed something toxic and gross—whether its been on a family member, or a friend, or someone on social media.
We are in a series called “Rediscovering Christmas—good news in troubling times.” This week, we are talking about rediscovering joy. And, you know, joy bubbles up all through the Christmas story. But it’s important to note that this joy isn’t separate from pain and disappointment. In fact, much of this joy is born out of a lot of pressure. A lot of disappointment and grief. And we see that in Luke 1. .
Luke’s Christmas story begins a little earlier than Mary and Joseph and Jesus, with a prophet named Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. Look at verses 5-7:
5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah,[a] of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
This short paragraph would have spoken volumes of information to Luke’s original audience. We’ve got Herod, the Roman king keeping the Jews under harsh Roman control. These are difficult times. And here we meet Zechariah and Elizabeth, both of priestly lineage. And in a day with a lot of religious corruption and power plays by the Pharisees and Sadducees, Zechariah and Elizabeth are a stark contrast. They are described as righteous, blameless, faithful. This is especially important in light of what Luke tells us next. Zechariah and Elizabeth are old but have never been able to have children.
That changes suddenly and miraculously when the archangel Gabriel shows up and tells Zechariah that his wife is going to have a son; a powerful prophetic son who will prepare the way for the coming Messiah. As you know, Zechariah is so overwhelmed he can hardly believe this news and when he questions the news, the angel says, “OK, here’s your sign. You won’t be able to speak until the child is born.” And the prophet is left writing and signing to everyone to explain what’s happened.
It seems Elizabeth is quicker to believe the news, and when she becomes pregnant, she says,
25 “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”
Let’s pause for a minute and think about what could have boiled up at that point. Doubt? That’s what came to the surface for poor Zechariah. But for Elizabeth, it was joy. Joy that she almost didn’t dare to believe!
Joy that maybe she wasn’t sure she was allowed to have. Can I risk believing that God has good things for me? Can I take a leap of faith and trust that God will do what He says He will do?
That’s the first thing I’d like us to REDISCOVER this morning about joy:
1. Rediscover that Joy and Happiness are Allowed. (Luke 1:14-17).
Now, For some of you, this is a no-brainer, no-duh kind of statement. Of course its ok to be happy and joyful. You are naturally positive people, and some of you just radiate joy, every time I see you.
But for others, this sounds a little subversive. We’ve grown up thinking that joy and happiness are two different things. We’ve probably all heard joy described in contrast to happiness. Happiness is fleeting and temporary. Joy is deeper and more fulfilling. Often in our Christian culture, the two get split into happiness as secular and less valuable or fulfilling, and joy as spiritual and more important or fulfilling. Is this ringing a bell? It should. I preached this myself a couple of years ago.
When Gabriel told Zechariah about the coming birth of John the Baptist, he said,
14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, (Luke 1:14)
In the Greek, these are two different words. Joy is chara, and gladness agalliasis. But in actuality, the Bible doesn’t make any distinction between joy and happiness. They are essentially different words for the same thing. They may have slightly different nuances, and they’ve been translated somewhat differently in our different English translations of the Bible, but the original Hebrew and Greek terms used in the Bible to describe joy and happiness are essentially interchangeable.
It might make you a little uncomfortable to give yourself permission to be joyful and happy. You might have a serious or melancholy temperament. You might have been conditioned to think that Christianity is all about performing and measuring up. You might have grown up with a heavier focus on the “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” aspect of discipleship.
So this Christmas, give yourself permission to be joyful, and even—dare I say it? Happy
There is great joy in the Christmas season, and it’s good to embrace and celebrate that joy.. But to those of you who find yourselves driven by obligation and busyness and guilt in this season, it’s OK to stop, and say no, and pause and embrace a part of the season that brings you personal happiness. And to those of you who find Christmas to be a painful, difficult season; to those of you who are hurting or grieving personally or feeling discouraged by this tumultuous last year we’ve been going through; and to those of you who are happy to revel in this season—it’s OK to feel and to embrace joy. God sees you no matter where you are on the emotional spectrum of happiness.
Our longing for happiness and joy is a natural desire that God has placed within us as a reflection of His own joyful nature. Whatever term we want to call it, the most important part is our source of joy and happiness.
Okay, let’s get back to Luke 1.
If this were a movie, this is where we’d get some kind of subtitle message like, “Meanwhile, in Galilee…” When Elizabeth is six months pregnant, Gabriel makes another earthly appearance, this time to Mary. And he’s delivering the most miraculous pregnancy announcement of all. In verse 31 and 32, he tells her that she is going to give birth to Jesus, and He will be the Son of the Lord Most High, and that He will inherit the throne of David, and will reign over the house of Jacob forever.
Mary received the news gracefully and willingly, but at some point early on, Mary must have known that her challenges and disgrace were just about to begin. She knows the scorn and shame she would face—and her family and her fiancé as well—would be tremendous when it became obvious she was pregnant and unmarried. How do you make people believe the baby in your womb is God’s Son? Even Joseph couldn’t believe this news at first, and as Matthew’s narrative tells us, Joseph planned to break off their engagement in what would have been a divorce in that culture. Mary’s journey would not be an easy one.
Maybe that’s why, as Luke tells us, Mary “hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea” (Luke 1:39, NIV). Mary must have heard about her relative Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy. “If anyone will understand, it has to be Elizabeth,” she might have thought. If so, she was right.
This is where the joy erupts. Against the past backdrop of discouragement, disgrace, grief, and shame, the joy comes bursting through. When fear and anxiety about the future could have crippled Mary, she found someone to share her news with. And that brings us to the second thing we can discover this morning:
2. Rediscover that Joy Shared Makes Joy stronger.
Luke tells us, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be[g] a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
What a relief this must have been to Mary. She didn’t have to explain herself. She didn’t have to worry anymore about being understood. All she had to do was say hello, and Elizabeth knew. Even her developing baby knew and leaped within her. This was just the affirmation and encouragement Mary needed. She burst into song. Look at verses 46-47:
And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
(Luke 1:46-55)
When Mary shares her news, she finds joy welling up inside her own spirit! And I believe that joy gave her the strength she needed to return to her hometown and face down all the criticism she might have gotten. Elizabeth confirmed that the baby growing inside Mary’s womb was from the Holy Spirit. Joy shared makes joy stronger, but it makes us stronger too!
Now, there’s a tiny little detail in the Christmas story that, to be honest, I’ve never heard anyone talk about, but it caught my eye as I was studying this week. In Luke 1:24, we read that after Elizabeth found out she was pregnant, she kept herself in seclusion for five months.
Maybe it’s the fact that we spent about five months in seclusion this year that this jumped out at me. Why was she in seclusion for five months? The text doesn’t say.
Maybe it’s because she is the poster child of a high risk pregnancy, and this was the first century equivalent of complete bed rest. Maybe there had been previous pregnancies that had ended with miscarriage and she didn’t want to take any chances of losing this one.
Maybe she had gotten used to seclusion. For Elizabeth, the inability to have children would have been a lifelong source of pain and sorrow and shame. It was a big deal in that culture. The great hopes of the young couple Elizabeth and Zechariah would have eventually faded through the years as they tried repeatedly to have a child. Elizabeth’s self-worth probably sunk as the years passed and hope dimmed. At some point, she and everyone around her would have declared Elizabeth barren and branded her with this lifelong stigma.
Regardless of the reasons for her seclusion, when she was six months into her pregnancy, her seclusion was interrupted by her cousin Mary. And just as Elizabeth gave Mary strength, I believe Mary encouraged Elizabeth. All her life Elizabeth has felt like a second class citizen. But now, she is being visited by the mother of the Messiah! Can you imagine? No wonder Elizabeth says, “Why is this granted to me?” She had been so used to feeling like she was being punished that she barely even allowed herself to feel any joy.
Our true source of happiness, joy, and fulfillment comes from Christ. Christmas is a season of joy because the Messiah has brought joy into the world and provided us the way of ultimate fulfillment and life.
I’m not suggesting that this is a don’t worry, be happy, put on a plastic smile and fake it kind of joy. Sometimes this joy is a rushing fountain erupting from our spirits, and sometimes it is a thick, slow bubble to the surface. Wherever you find yourself today, let me encourage you that the joy of the Lord can be felt no matter what we are facing. And that leads us to our final point.
3. Rediscover that Joy is a Choice
I want to jump over to Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus for just a minute to pick up a part of the story we don’t get from Luke. It’s the part that deals with the magi, or wise men and King Herod, we see two different responses to the news of Jesus birth. The wise men saw the star and rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. (v. 18). They traveled hundreds of miles. They sought Jesus. They sacrificed extravagantly. They risked their lives. And they chose joy.
King Herod, on the other hand, chose to be threatened by the news of a new King of the Jews. Even though he was right there in Jerusalem, only seven miles or so away from Bethlehem, he didn’t seek Jesus. He was “greatly disturbed,” and all Jerusalem with him (v. 3)
Remember the truth that we started with: “Whatever is inside is what boils over.” And when Herod learned that he had been tricked by the wise men, what boiled over was rage and murder and hatred. Herod was just one big, ugly, toxic, superheated mud puddle.
Joy is a choice. Look closely at the word “rejoice.” Rejoice is the verb form of joy. It’s the action of feeling or expressing joy and delight. Notice that it begins with the prefix re-: Remember that this prefix means once more, or again, or a return to. So to rejoice is to return to joy. It’s a choice and an action we can take to return to joy. I’d like to add that for us, it is a return to our source of joy; it’s a return to Jesus.
Friends, I believe this is the only way we can find true delight and satisfaction. And I believe the process is the same for all of us, whether we are feeling the happiness and joy of this season or not. Whether we are buried in discouragement or everything is going our way, none of us can conjure an unending supply of feel-good happiness all the time, no matter how optimistic or positive our natural disposition is. Sooner or later, we all have one of those days, or weeks, or years. And in reality, we all have them way more often than we’d like.
That’s where the re- comes in. That’s where we must return regularly, daily, constantly to Jesus, our source of joy. It’s why rejoicing is our process of refueling our tank, restoring our strength, and renewing our spirits. It’s reconnecting with our Savior.
In the difficult times, there’s much encouragement to be found in the “rejoices” of the Psalms. Psalm 13 is a great example. It begins with the painful cry, “How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1, NIV). It ends with the reminder and declaration, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation” (Psalm 13:5, NIV).
It’s just one of many similar examples. The Psalms are honest and raw as the writers pour out their feelings in these prayer-like poems and songs. Then we see them transition through the process of remembering and stirring themselves to rejoice and find strength in and from God. This is where and how we find authentic joy. This is how we can celebrate in this season as we remember and turn to Jesus, who is come to be with us and to give us joy. It’s a joy we’ve got the freedom to express. It’s a joy that we can choose. And it’s a joy that becomes stronger when we share it.
Conclusion
This week, a friend of mine wrote a blog post about the old Christmas Carol Good King Wenceslas. I’ll be honest, I had no idea what this song was about, or even how to pronounce the name. So I looked up the lyrics, and they are printed on the back of your listening guide. Don’t worry—we aren’t going to make you sing this tonight at cookies and carols. But here’s the story of King Wenceslas. He was a real life person in history, living in what is now the Czech republic in the tenth century.
The legend the Christmas carol is based on says that on the day after Christmas—the feast of Stephen, December 26, King Wenceslas was looking out his window that night. I can imagine he’s had a huge meal, and he’s in his nice warm castle without a care in the world. But he looks out his window and he sees a poor peasant gathering wood for a fire. So he calls one of his servants over and he says, hey—do you know that guy? And the servant says, “Well, yeah. He lives at the edge of the forest, like three miles away.
And King Wenceslas says, “Well, he looks cold and hungry. Let’s bring him some food and firewood. So the King and his servant take off. And it’s a cold night. The wind is howling, and the cold just creeps into their bones.
After awhile the servant said, King W, I don’t think I can go on any further. It’s great that you want to take this food to this guy, but I’m going to freeze.
And according to the legend, Good King Wenceslas told his servant to walk directly behind him, putting his feet down in the tracks Wenceslas left for him. And the servant found that if he walked in his master’s footsteps, that warmth and heat would come up the ground. And that if he just stayed close to his king, he would be warm.
So look at the last stanza with me:
In his master's steps he trod,
where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
shall yourselves find blessing.
Friends, joy is meant to be shared. If we are going to follow in the steps of the master, it means meeting the needs of the hurting, the hungry, the fearful, and the anxious.
