Midweek Musing- Joy (Advent 2024)

This week found myself sitting in a hospital waiting room as my daughter underwent surgery. A surgical waiting arena is a place where time seems to move differently, where hopes and fears intertwine, and you are often drawn into moments of prayerful silence.

Since I find it is impossible to stay like that for long periods, I opened my Kindle app to read something to help pass the time. Whatever subscription we have (don’t ask me, I just pay for it) it includes magazines.

I began swiping though lots of articles and magazines when I came across an article that caught my eye from People magazine which is not a typical go to publication for me.

This story was about Lauren Muckleroy, a mother who survived an unimaginable tragedy. Last year, a car accident caused by a drunk driver claimed the lives of her husband and two children. And yet, in the wake of such grief, Lauren shared these profound words that have stayed with me:

"We sometimes think that to find hope or joy, that we have to eliminate sorrow, but it's possible that you can experience both at the same time."

Her words stayed with me, lingering in the quiet spaces of that waiting room and echoing a truth we often forget joy is not the absence of sorrow but the presence of something greater.

As we celebrate Advent, the season where we look forward in hope, peace, joy, and love, we find ourselves filled with expectation—not a shallow optimism, but a deep and abiding belief that the promises of God are true. We light the candle of joy not because everything is perfect, but because we trust in the One who is perfect. The Advent journey reminds us that joy is rooted not in circumstances, but in the presence of God—in a promise fulfilled and a kingdom coming.

Both the Old and New Testaments give voice to this deep joy—a joy that doesn’t ignore sorrow but embraces it because we have faith in God’s promises.

In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah speaks to a people living in exile, surrounded by despair and uncertainty. Yet, he proclaims:

“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” (Isaiah 12:3)

For those exiled Israelites, joy was not about immediate relief from their pain but about drawing strength from the promise of God —a promise of restoration that gave them hope to carry on. Their joy came not from their circumstances, but from the expectation of a day when God would make all things right.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul writes from a prison cell to the early church in Philippi. This was a church community which was enduring hardships and persecution. Yet despite his and their current situation Paul offers these rather surprising words:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)

Paul’s joy is not a denial of suffering but a declaration of trust in God. He rejoices because he knows that God’s love is true, and he is holding on to belief in the promised day to come. Paul is trying to explain in the words he writes to the Philippians (and you and me) that joy is not circumstantial; it is deeply spiritual. It is a decision to believe in God’s promise, even when the evidence of the world says otherwise.

In this Advent season, we live in a tension much like the article I read in People and much of nightly news describes. We grieve for our hurting, broken world—for lives lost, for hopes shattered, for prayers unanswered—and yet, as Christians, we are called to choose joy because we believe God’s kingdom will come on earth even as it is in heaven. We live with expectation that God’s love will have the final word. And because we believe that to be true, we can be instruments of that love in the here and now.

Lauren Muckleroy’s story reminds us that joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive. Joy can be found in the midst of hospital waiting rooms and in the midst of our daily brokenness, because joy is anchored not in what is, but in what will be.

It is a light in the darkness, which the darkness can never overcome.

As we journey through Advent, we are invited to live as people of joy—not with a Pollyannaish optimism that ignores pain, but with a deep belief that God’s promises are true. We are to live not just with expectation, but we also live as active participants, demonstrating the love and grace we know through Jesus Christ.

Friends, joy is not passive. It calls us to respond. Jesus Himself declared:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

When we choose joy, we join Christ in His work of proclaiming good news and bringing to a hurting world. We become people who bring light into darkness, who offer comfort to those who weep, and who share hope with those longing for healing and restoration.

In this season may we rejoice not because the world is perfect, but because God came to be with us in a babe and by the power of the Holy Spirit is with us still. Thus, may we, like Lauren Muckleroy, find the courage to say:

"We sometimes think that to find hope or joy, that we have to eliminate sorrow, but it's possible that you can experience both at the same time."

Joy is the light that shines in the darkness, a reminder of the day we await with expectation—when every tear will be wiped away and God’s love will reign forever. Until then, may we live in joy, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ in all we do.

 In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia. Amen.