Joy to the World
Joy is of many kinds. Sometimes it comes silently, opening all closed doors and making itself at home in the desolate heart. ~ Howard Thurman
Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace. ~ Pope Francis
READING “Joy Is of Many Kinds” ~ Howard Turman in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations, Friends United Press, Richmond, Indiana, 1973. Page 92 (selected passages)
Joy is of many kinds. Sometimes it comes silently, opening all closed doors and making itself at home in the desolate heart. It has no forerunner save itself; it brings its own welcome and salutation.
Sometimes joy is a compound of many elements: a touch of sadness, a whimper of pain, a harsh word tenderly held until all its arrogance dies, the casting of the eye into the face that understands, the clasp of a hand that holds, then releases, a murmer of tenderness where no word is spoken, the distilled moment or remembrance of day, a night, an hour, lived beyond the sweep of the daily round – joy is often compounded of many things.
….
There is the joy that is given. There are those who have in themselves the gift of Joy. It has no relation to merit or demerit. It is not a quality they have wrested from the vicissitudes of life. Such people have not fought and won a hard battle; they have made no conquest. To them Joy is given as a precious ingredient in life. Wherever they go, they give birth to Joy in others – they are the heavenly troubadours, eathbound, who spread their music all around and who sing their song without words and without sounds. To be touched by them is to be blessed [of God]. …..
READING “A Brief History of Joy to the World, An Accidental Classic” - adapted from Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It by Greg Forster.
An Accidental Classic
Did you know that “Joy to the World” was not written as a Christmas carol? In its original form, it had nothing to do with Christmas. It wasn’t even written to be a song.
Isaac Watts was one of the great hymn writers in church history, and I guess nothing shows that better than the fact that he wrote one of his most famous hymns by accident. In 1719, Watts published a book of poems in which each poem was based on a psalm. But rather than just translate the original Old Testament texts, he adjusted them to refer more explicitly to the work of Jesus as it had been revealed in the New Testament.
One of those poems was an adaptation of Psalm 98. Watts interpreted this psalm as a celebration of Jesus’s role as King of both his church and the whole world. More than a century later, the second half of this poem was slightly adapted and set to music to give us what has become one of the most famous of all Christmas carols:
Joy to the world, the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare him room And heaven and nature sing!
And heaven and nature sing!
And heaven . . . and heaven . . . and nature sing.
Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,
Repeat the sounding joy! Repeat the sounding joy!
Repeat . . . repeat . . . the sounding joy!
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found!
Far as the curse is found!
Far as . . . far as . . . the curse is found!
He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness
And wonders of his love!
And wonders of his love!
And wonders . . . wonders . . . of his love!
This article is adapted from Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It by Greg Forster.
Greg Forster (PhD, Yale University) serves as the director of the Oikonomia Network at the Center for Transformational Churches at Trinity International University. He is a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the editor of the blog Hang Together, and a frequent conference speaker.
SERMON
There’s a part of me that just wants to begin by saying that I’ve spent the last week looking for Joy in all the wrong places. I spent days – Ariel will attest to this – wondering what I could actually say about Joy this morning. I laid out the services for this month a whole month ago – and I found myself struggling with the Advent and Christmas and Solstice and Chanukkah and Kwanzaa (they all seem to be full of Joy) theme of Joy.
I said to Ariel this week, “I’m just not feeling it.”
Sometimes, this winter holiday season is full of moments, days, or even weeks when the ‘spirit of the season’ completely eludes us. Thus it was for me and Joy. Then mid week when I thought that I would be preaching about something completely in the abstract – Joy arrived. Well, what do you know?! I stopped looking for it in all the wrong places, and to be honest, all the usual places too, and then when I surrendered to the empty waiting, there it was- right in front of me, all along.
I noticed people talking about things and people and events that either brouht them joy or reminded them of joy. Their joy became my joy – not in a dishonest or misappropriation way, but really and honestly and authentically. It was now my Joy. And it has pretty well stuck with me into this very moment.
I was emailing Dr. Duncan Newcomer this week about our Sunday schedule in January and February. (He’s coming here on February 9th) I mentioned that I was sort of struggling with Joy. He responded with an observation born of experience and wisdom. He said
When we used to "do" Joy workshops in my therapy practice nobody stayed! You just can't Do Joy directly it seems only as a side affect of something else.
Hmm. Joy may well be a side effect of something else.
Looking for joy may not work. Scheduling joy certainly doesn’t work.
Waiting for joy – now that’s somehow different.
Being in a spiritual space to notice and receive and celebrate joy – now, we’re getting close.
Howard Thurman had it right too when he wrote that Joy is of many kinds and shows up in a variety of ways.
I really love his opening words on Joy:
Joy is of many kinds. Sometimes it comes silently, opening all closed doors and making itself at home in the desolate heart. It has no forerunner save itself; it brings its own welcome and salutation.
It brings its own salutation. Nice. Nothing for me to do but welcome it!
He goes on to remind us that joy does not always come easily or exactly when needed or as a quick remedy for sadness and pain.
Sometimes joy is a compound of many elements: a touch of sadness, a whimper of pain, a harsh word tenderly held until all its arrogance dies, the casting of the eye into the face that understands, the clasp of a hand that holds, then releases, a murmur of tenderness where no word is spoken, the distilled moment or remembrance of day, a night, an hour, lived beyond the sweep of the daily round – joy is often compounded of many things.
It is alright, really, not to feel the excitement and happiness of Christmastime. For some of us, this is a very sad time of year. Some of us struggle to maintain our own well-being in the midst of the happiness of others. In those times, in those moments, the clasp of a hand that holds and then releases with a soundless murmur of tenderness can mean more than all the carols and bells, saints and Santas, and ever can. And still, Joy may come. It may come as a quiet comfort or a moment when the cares of the season do not weigh so heavily upon the heart and soul.
You may ask me, “What changed for you this week to move from ‘not feeling the joy’ to a place of joy-filled contentment?” I don’t know, exactly. I suspect that Joy showed up when I abandoned my determined search for pithy words and stunning illustrations and fell back into a quiet and resigned waiting. It was then that I began to see and finally feel the Joy of others all around me; a joy that, as Howard Thurman says, is a gift that some of us carry inside as an essential ingredient of life. It spills out of them and into me like the water of life. And, I am grateful for the presence of these heavenly troubadours, earthbound, who spread their music all around and who sing their song without words and without sounds. To be touched by them is to be blessed.
Let me mention just a couple of things that brought me joy this week – things I didn’t expect and then realized that my heart and soul have in fact been patiently preparing and waiting for exactly this. One of my minister friends mentioned that they were re-reading the Book of Joy by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. I remember reading that book with a smile on my face almost the whole time. I watched one of the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials on a Facebook post. Whether the joy from that comes as laughing or eyes brimming with tears hardly matters; joy it is. Now, I will share with the best moment of completely unplanned but endless joy – real joy, I have to tell you, real joy. It’s not about Christmas or Jesus or Solstice or even winter. Nope – you know where I’m going ….
Greta Thunberg is Time’s Person of the Year! There is Joy in the world. There is Hope for our future. It comes not only as a babe born two thousand years ago in Bethlehem; it comes as a teenager born in Sweden who shall lead us.
And so, Joy arrived. I got out my favorite holiday music. I sat and listened to Joy to the World in a new way. I heard the soaring music and the rising voices of soloists and choir that fill the room and reverberate in the rafters of the sanctuary or the high ceiling of the concert hall or the recesses of my own heart in Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Can you hear it? Can you hear and feel the sounds of Joy? I can, now. If you cannot, well, wait a bit. We cannot DO JOY and we cannot MAKE JOY. We can only wait and let our hearts receive joy when the time is right.
My Dear Spiritual Companions, here we are in the middle of December, suspended between the waiting and the arrival of our holiday and and holy day – be it Solstice or Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or New Year’s Eve. I am delighted, and yes full of Joy, to be here together with you.
Blessed Be. I Love You. Amen.
