Sunday, the Fourth Week of Advent

JOY

When I was a child I remember my mother worrying every Christmas that she wouldn’t be ready. This was a great mystery to me. If there was anything in the world I was always ready for it was Christmas. But every year I’d catch her muttering under her breath, “I’ll never be ready!, I’ll never be ready”. And every year she would, at some point, sit us all down (8 children) and say, “You’ll all have to pitch in and do more, or we won’t be ready, and Christmas just won’t come this year.” I don’t remember that we actually did pitch in and do more, but I do remember that Christmas managed to come somehow, every year.

So, are you ready for Christmas? Well, if not, don’t worry too much about it. In my experience Christmas happens every 25^th of December,…ready or not. And it’s always wonderful.

And, just think about that first Christmas. Were Mary and Joseph “ready” for the birth of Jesus? They didn’t have a nursery set up with a little crib and hanging mobile. They didn’t have a house, or an apartment, or even a room in an inn. But God had chosen them and, presumably, had been preparing them all their lives. He seemed to think they were ready for this.

They were ready to devote their lives to making a family for the Son of God; to bear the shame of an untimely pregnancy, and the dangers of being on the wrong side of King Herod; and ready to manage the uncertainties of raising the Messiah. In short, they were ready to drop everything when God called on them and, in this uncertain world, it’s hard to be much more ready than that. And if the proof is in the pudding, this Christmas pudding turned out just fine.

As we light the fourth candle and enter the fourth week of Advent, the Christmas week, the accumulated love, peace and hope of the previous three weeks turns to joy. But to enter into joy we must deal those old joy thieves, Stress and Anxiety.

You see, no one is ever ready for God, in the sense of having everything in order. We can never have enough decorations up, baking done, presents wrapped, cards sent, parties organized, or worship services planned for God. Whatever we do, he deserves infinitely more. But what we can have is what Mary and Joseph had; hearts ready to recognize him, give him top priority, drop everything and welcome him.

Joy doesn’t come from trees and cards and gifts, not even from parties and friends and family. Joy is the state of being we are in when we’re ready to receive God at a moment’s notice, drop everything and celebrate. As Isaac Watts wrote, way back in 1719:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come,

Let earth receive her king.

Let every heart prepare him room,

And heaven and nature sing.