JOY (Thoughts on This Advent Pillar)

by Lorie Codispoti

I cry every day! Sounds like a strange way to open an article about joy, but it makes perfect sense to me as I’ve learned a thing or two about how tears of sorrow mingle with tears of joy.

When talking about the marks of ministry, the apostle Paul said that one of the ways others recognize we are ministers of the Gospel is that we are “sorrowful yet rejoicing.” (2Cor.6:3-10) We have the ability to be joyful in the midst of incredible suffering.

How is that even possible when our natural inclination is to run when any kind of suffering knocks at the door? We sprint to the nearest inoculation center, where we hope to ease the effects, or better yet, prevent suffering's unwanted visitation altogether.

An inoculation may prevent you from catching a virus, but it won't keep suffering out of your life. In order to fight the devastating effects of suffering you have to have a daily infusion of God's Spirit. When God infuses our suffering with Himself we are filled with the capacity to produce things that we’d never be able to produce without Him. Like JOY!

At the incarnation of Christ an angel was dispatched to a bunch of shepherds tending their flocks. The angel's assignment was to announce “good tidings of great joy.” (Lk.2:10) Immediately following this announcement the sky is filled with a mighty host of angels and an eruption of praise lights up the heavens. (Imagine what that must have been like for those shepherds. A "silent night"? I don't think so.)

Now, do you think this illuminating joy-filled cacophony, as magnificent as it must have been, removed all the sorrow that was present in the world at that time? The answer is no, it didn’t. In fact, sorrow was not only present, but time would see it mutate & multiply as every attempt was made to choke out the Reason for this “great joy.” (Ex: Joseph & Mary were forced to flee in order to protect their son from an evil ruler who ordered his soldiers to hunt down & murder baby boys under the age of two. Can you hear the sound of sorrow as garments were soaked with tears?)

The beauty of the joy we experience this side of heaven is not that it erases sorrow from our lives. Rather, it is much like translucent velum, overlaying itself on to the picture of our suffering. Joy relegates our sorrow to the background & takes its rightful place up front. Because of Christ's incarnation & resurrection, joy overlays our suffering & enables us to press on in the mission of glorifying God with our lives.

Something we need to consider about the miraculous incarnation of Christ is that His suffering didn’t begin at the cross, it began at the cradle. Remember, He stepped “down” by taking on human flesh. The very embodiment of Joy, the God of all creation, entered into our suffering world so that He could rescue us from it.

We can sing “joy to the world” because our Savior not only came, but because He is coming. When my tears of sorrow mingle with tears of joy I am reminded of the One, who, from the cradle to the cross endured unbearable pain “for the joy set before Him.” 

Sorrow has an expiration date! There is a tearless day on the horizon, & on that day our Savior will come to take us to the place where sorrow never existed & where it is joy that mutates & multiplies.

“And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Isa.35:10)