Reading: Luke 2.1-20
When I was six, so I recall, I thought twelve-year-olds were impossibly old By the time I reached twelve, twenty-one seemed a long way away. But how many of us - young or old - expected to reach the year 2000?
Recently, I read a report suggesting that not all the Y2K problems are the result of technology. There is a problem with expired headstones. Someone has calculated that in the USA there may be as many as 250,000 headstones with the surviving spouse's name together with the digits "19__", because they just didn't expect to reach the year 2000.
Our view of time is so limited by minutes and hours and days and years. That is how we measure our life, our tasks, our circumstances… That is how life comes to us, and our emotions tend to be regulated by what is happening to us.
Last Sunday we were thinking about the "millennial" love of God. Of course, God's love isn't restricted to 1000 years really. But I used this term because that eternal love has been revealed in our human history. Some 2000 years BC God called Abraham and promised that through his descendants all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12.1-3). Then 2000 years later, "God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life" (Jn 3.16). And now, on the verge of 2000AD, the gift of God's love is still available to all who believe in him.
Today we are thinking of God's joy. Do you think God is happy? For centuries scholars have argued about "divine impassibility" - the teaching that God is not affected by happenings in the world and therefore doesn't have emotions as we understand them. It is all part of our difficulty in describing the infinite God from the perspective of our finite human experience. However, we rightly speak of God's joy.
In Genesis 1 we are told that God was "very pleased" with what he had made (v. 31). Jesus said there is great joy in heaven over every sinner who repents (Lk. 15). The faithful servants were to share their lord's happiness (Mt. 25.21,23) - to "enter into the joy" of their Lord as the KJV put it.
Of course, joy isn't like having a big laugh. It isn't dependent on circumstances. Very often it is present in spite of an adverse situation. We are told in Hebrews 12 that Jesus, "because of the joy that was waiting for him, …thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross" (v. 2) - hardly what we would call a happy situation, yet full of joy. Similarly, Peter wrote, "My dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful test you are suffering, as though something unusual were happening to you. Rather be glad that you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may be full of joy when his glory is revealed" (1 Pet. 4.12-13).
For us, happiness is having everything go right for us, a sense of pleasure with our circumstances - perhaps with a joke thrown in for good measure. But joy isn't circumstance-dependent - it is the gift of God.
Today we celebrate Christmas, a festival of great joy.
But, thinking about what happened, where is the joy? A census was being taken. Why? Our best information is that it had to do with more efficient and effective collection of taxes throughout the Roman Empire (see Josephus, Ant. 18.1). You call that joy?
Because of the census, Mary and Joseph travelled from Nazareth in the Galilean north to Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem - a distance of some 110 kilometres as the crow flies. That's an easy journey with our modern transport. But how did they make the journey? We aren't told. Artistic imagination has been kind to Mary and given her a donkey to ride. But she was almost full-term. Was this a welcome journey at such a time?
The descendants of David had gathered in the ancestral home-town for the census. "There was no room for them to stay in the inn" - so much for all those distant "rellies"! And you call that joy?
We have just sung that delightful and popular Christmas carol -
The "manger" was a cattle feeding-trough. We imagine clean fresh hay and ignore the manure and flies. You call that joy?
"The stars looked down" we sing. Is this suggesting that the manger may not have been in the privacy and shelter of a stable - perhaps even out in the public square? We don't know for sure where the manger was, but do you call that joy?
Somehow we have glamorised and idealised the beautiful story. In reality, the whole situation seems to have been far from ideal.
And yet… an angel appeared to the shepherds with the message, "Don't be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in David's town your Saviour was born - Christ the Lord! And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger" (Lk 2.10-12).
Great joy - because your Saviour has been born. Great joy - because God's promise of a Messiah is now fulfilled. Great joy - because the Lord himself has come. Good news indeed! Good news of great joy!
Amid the limits of our frame,
Aloft in public view and shame,
Jesus lives! Now hear the Name,
It's Christmas time, and what should I say? If I greet you, "Merry Christmas!", I might need to add, "But don't overdo it!" And to say, "Happy Christmas!" could be insensitive to the personal struggles of your life - and uncaring about the East Timors, Kosovos and Chechnyas of this world. Rather, I wish you Christmas joy - the joy that flows from the good news of what God did when his Son Jesus Christ came into this world two millennia ago. I wish you Christmas joy - in trusting him and knowing him as your Saviour Christ the Lord. I wish you Christmas joy - a joy that no circumstance and no person can ever take from you. That is what I mean when I say to you this day - Happy Christmas!
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