“When is there Joy?”
December 14, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
It is the Third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday we light the pink candle, the Sunday of Joy (or in the old church “Gaudete” Sunday [Latin for Joy]). Whatever you call it, it is a reminder, for all of us, that in this serious business of Advent, in this time when we ponder Christ’s coming into our world, and the time when Christ will come again—we can’t forget that this is a time of Joy!
Now, we have to confess that we as the progeny of the Pilgrims (at least the most well-known of the Reformed family on American soil), might give joy a short shrift. The Pilgrims felt that Christmas wasn’t even a holiday. They couldn’t find it in the Bible, so it didn’t exist. There was to be no merriment, no feasting, no gift giving—in fact, they outlawed Christmas in the Massachusetts Bay Colony as they saw it as a pagan festival! We may have gone a little too far from that in recent years—with Christmas being so secular we might “forget the reason for the season.”
The two readings I choose for today, Isaiah and the Magnificat, are the closest things we have to narratives of Joy. Mary, lifts up her voice in an echo of Hannah’s song of praise. She looks into the future and sees the things that God has promised to do for all the downtrodden. But we can’t forget that this was a young woman who was pregnant (before she was married and the fiancée didn’t know how that had happened!). She was living in a country oppressed by the Roman Empire. It was not necessarily a time of joy. But she found it anyway.
Isaiah’s prophecy from chapter 35 will sound familiar to any who have heard Handel’s Messiah-- Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
But Isaiah is talking about more than just human joy—deserts bloom, waters spring up in the wilderness, and a highway appears. This highway spoken of last week, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord” becomes a reality. Called the “Holy Way”—it is safe from lions and tigers and bears (oh my), and the people who walk on its way shall rejoice, “everlasting joy shall be on their heads…and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
The early part of Isaiah is written to God’s people when they were under threat (mostly from the Assyrian empire) but many of its themes are picked up when “Isaiah” addresses those in exile. In other words, it was not a joyful time. It is an anxious time. It is a worrying time. And yet, Isaiah points to the future, a future that is supposed to be our bedrock for the present. It will not always be like this—God promises through Isaiah. I’m coming.
Here again we see the duality we have been talking about this Advent. We clearly know the present and its circumstances—and often they are stark. But we also know that there is this undergirding promise from God. We know that what is right now is not what always will be. Our world is not yet what God intends for it to be. Advent calls us to live in our world, but to be upheld, supported, and guided by that God-given future. It is that future and our living inside it, that provides the answer to our question for today: “When is there Joy?”
Madeleine L'Engle, best known as the author of A Wrinkle in Time, but a memoirist and poet as well, put it this way in a poem called, “The Risk of Birth, Christmas, 1973.”
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn —
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn —
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
When is there Joy? Not just when everything is going well. Not just when we are feeling good. Joy is an emotion linked somehow to God. As Henri Nouwen put it: “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing — sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death — can take that love away.” You could even say that Joy is the human response to God’s love. Joy in God’s love for us. Joy in seeing ourselves as God sees us. Joy in responding to God’s love by lives of service. Joy in having joy-colored glasses that see both the way the world is and the way the world could be superimposed upon each other.
Joy does not negate the horrors around us. Joy insists that we do something about them. Joy does not wrap us up in a cocoon, safe from any harm or sorrow or sighing. Joy opens a window onto how we are to live in the midst of any time, any place, any circumstance. Joy is not just happiness. It is deeper than that. Joy is wrapped up with hope and peace (shalom) and love. Joy is a gift from God.
That’s why the angels show up in the hills above Bethlehem with “good news of great joy.” And maybe that’s why one of the favorite Christmas carols is “Joy to the World.” Not just joy at Jesus being born, but joy at God’s kin-dom coming into our world. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her king; let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing. Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns! Let all their songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy.”
Another favorite hymn is based on Joy as well. “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of hove; Hearts unfold like flowers before thee, opening to the sun above. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, drive the dark of doubt away, Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day.//Mortals, join the happy chorus which the morning stars began, Love divine is reigning o’er us, joining all in heaven’s plan. Ever singing, march we onward, victors in the midst of strife; Joyful music leads us sunward in the triumph song of life.”
Both of these hymns see joy as something that involves all of creation. And maybe that is something we can take away from this sermon. We may feel joy personally, but joy is not a personal emotion. It is meant to be felt together—together as people, together as a world. There are no limits to where and when we might find joy. Maybe we find joy in the snap of cold that brings some winter white to our eyes. Maybe we find joy in the song of the birds as they talk with one another at all hours of the day and night. Maybe we find joy in the beauty of finding deer grazing on our lawn. Maybe we find joy in the crisp clear of a cold night—allowing us to see so much more. Maybe we find joy in the plethora of lights that twinkle and blink at this time of year.
Maybe we find joy in the singing of carols and other holiday music. Maybe we find joy in being together with family or friends or co-workers to “make merry.” Maybe we find joy in picking out the perfect gift for someone we love. Maybe we find joy in giving to others who might have greater needs than we do. Maybe we find joy in waking up every morning and getting ready to be of service to God somehow this day. Maybe we find joy in honoring all those who have worked so hard to help create this country we live in. Maybe we find joy in worshipping God together.
I could go on and on. I invite you this week to be on the lookout for when and where and how you experience joy.
Maybe you want to have a “joy” list (modeled on the gratitude lists we are prompted to make). Can you list 10 things that gave you joy today? And if not, well, maybe you have some work to do!
I will share one joy I had recently. Ann Marie and I listened to A Christmas Carol on audiobook, narrated by Hugh Grant. There were parts of the story that don’t make it into the numerous movies and plays we have all seen. I found myself marveling at the humor and wit of Charles Dickens. But my greatest joy was in the story itself. A story of someone who was so wrapped up in himself and what he could gain, that he wasn’t open to the joy of life.
Only through Scrooge’s encounters with Jacob Marley, his now dead business partner, and the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, does he realize what he has been missing. And he wakes up, literally and symbolically, on Christmas morning a changed man. Now everything and everyone can be seen in a different light. Now there is delight, dare we say, joy, in the ringing of the bells, in greeting people on the street, in surprising his nephew, and in becoming a benefactor to those in need—especially Tiny Tim.
Mary sings her song and invites us to sing along. Madeleine L’Engle muses that God’s love doesn’t wait to be born in the best of times. Dickens pokes us with his story of repentance and joy. And Isaiah pictures a “Holy Way,” God’s highway, and beacons us to find it and use it as our way.
Joy to the World. Joy in the World. Good news of great joy.
May we take this message into our hearts, this and every season of our lives.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.