Crazy, Fabulous Joy

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

-Christmas Carol

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me!
Three Dog Night


Joy is such a fierce thing, isn’t it? The word itself makes me think of something that cannot be stopped, like a flooding river through a broken dam. It makes me think of warm grins that cannot be contained, spreading to eyes and cheeks and faces, like a child at Christmas time. It makes me think of a hot and crackling fire in a big fireplace, where people can gather from the cold and drink warm drinks and put their snow things out to dry. This time of year, we are told from every corner to enjoy the season, to be merry, to take time to take in the meaning of Christmas. We watch favorite Christmas movies, we make special food and frost favorite cookies. We gather for parties with friends and family and pass out presents we hope will be received with happiness. It’s good to be busy this time of year with festive things, with planning, and giggling over silly traditions and debating over who sings “White Christmas” best (Elvis gets my vote, hands down). I think while it can be hard to balance the goodness of  Christmas celebrations while pondering the meaning of them, it is entirely possible.

I’ve always heard that joy is so much more than happiness, that happiness is defined by mere circumstance. Joy is stronger than that. It breaks through our daily grind, our poor health, our poor decisions in the past, our jobs, our living situations, our never-ending to-do lists, our constantly changing lives, our heartbreak over the state of the world. Joy acknowledges the validity of all these things, I believe, and yet calls us to look upward, like the wisemen following the star to find the baby lying in a manger. We look past ourselves to something, someone greater and bigger and infinitely more jolly than what we are used to.

We look to a God who loves relationships and parties and celebrations. He has always called His people to always rejoice, to sing out loud, to praise, to be loud in love. This same God who was a man of sorrows and who knew our pain and our sin also tells us to rejoice in Him always and again says, rejoice. This is where joy comes from. He has put to flight our sin and the death we all deserve. God Himself is our Day-Spring, our Sunrise, our cheer. He has come to abide and disperse the gloomy clouds of our night, of our dark days. Our Immanuel, God Himself with us, has come to us and shall come to us again. When He comes again, it will not be in hiding, in the dark backroom of an unknown inn, in the cry of a newborn infant. He will not come in obscurity or weakness, but with all the power and glory of the Son of God revealed, the One who will come to make all things new and all things holy. He will set all things right then, all of our broken things and all the world’s broken things.

Joy starts from within, from a realization of the joyous love of God toward us, and it can’t help but radiate outward in overwhelming beams of goodwill, to ourselves and everyone. It melts our pride, our selfishness, our busyness, our chilled souls. Joy gives us new eyes to see all the blessings of God right now and for the future. Joy allows us to see others as they are and share the light and joy we’ve found with them with all the urgency and unstoppable force of a melting glacier. This is the fierceness and bigness of joy. Christmas is the perfect time to take a moment or two and realize that the joy of God is indeed in us. This is why we have parties and presents and too many cookies; why we sing carols and songs telling the world that He has come, He abides in us and He is coming again.  Let us live out this joy and realize how much He delights in us. It will change everything and we will bring His kingdom wherever we are. This joy will rise up and flood this world, our world, with warmth and light and peace.

Joy to Our World

Mortal! We Spirits of Christmas do not live only one day of our year. We live the whole three hundred and sixty-five. So is it true of the Child born in Bethlehem. He does not live in men’s hearts one day of the year, but in all the days of the year.
-A Christmas Carol

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

-Jesus, John 10:10

I’m so excited about Christmas this year that I’ve been breaking unwritten rules by listening to Christmas albums EARLY. I find myself listening to carols on the way to work with tears streaming down my face. Pretty crazy, right? It’s just that Christmas keeps smacking me in the face with the idea of joy. This world really sucks sometimes. Broken relationships, broken dishes, broken jobs, broken bodies, broken everything sometimes. I get caught up in the brokenness a lot. So when I turn on my Christmas music, things like joy, peace, and holy nights filter past my feelings and flood my imagination. The gospel shines out like all the lit candles during a Christmas Eve service. It fills up my days like a stuffed stocking on Christmas morning. Like a star on top of a Christmas tree, the good news of Jesus coming to earth brightens and transforms my home life and my work life and everything in between.

Come and worship Christ the King. Drop whatever you’re doing and just gaze at Him. Then give Him all your gifts of sorrows, of joys, of talents, of time. Go tell it on a mountain that our Jesus Christ is born. Live your life where everyone around you can see you and hear your story of what He has done for you; for them; for all of us. Ransom captive Israel. He has freely rescued you from yourself, from sin, from people-pleasing, from a 9-5 sort of job, from our terrible histories, for His love redeems all those things. Our mourning can finally end and our rejoicing can be loud because He has finally come. No more let sins and sorrows infest the ground. Whatever you’ve done, whatever others have done to you, don’t let them take root in you! Jesus would go on to say, “Go and sin no more.“ Let us root out our sorrows and sins and allow God to plant His joy and peace in us. Our sorrows are not any less real because of Christmas, of course, but we do know that their end is finally in sight. God with man is now residing. Abiding in us. Making all things new, making abundant life in each of us. Born to die. For you, for me, for our past, for our present, and for our future.

This gospel, this good news, is why we take time to prepare and celebrate. God Himself came as a baby born in poverty, only to grow up, show us the Kingdom of God, and then die alone to save the sorry lot of humanity. Why shouldn’t it stop us in our tracks? Break us out of our routine, crack our daily mirrors, make us drop our coffee cups, keep us up at night? I don’t want to be like the innkeeper who couldn’t find any room for Jesus, the King of the Universe. Sure, He’ll find some way to make His presence known in our lives and maybe even be born in the stable in the back. But don’t I want to fully invite the glories of His righteousness, the wonders of His love, to wash over me and transform me?

So I’m making room for Him, in this upcoming Christmas season and for all the rest of the year. Let us remind ourselves of the great story of Jesus, how He came to reconcile humanity to Himself,  and how He Himself is in the business of giving joy and making all celebration possible. Let us each prepare Him room, then. Let us be filled to the brim with His joy and peace. Let us be overflowing with the joy and hope of the season all year-round, so His much-needed joy will be spread throughout this world.

Taste and See

I have identified myself as a foodie for some time, finding great joy and comfort in mashed potatoes and baked chicken. I believe with all my heart in the power of a latte and a well-timed cookie. So when Ben and I went on a diet last month,  it was tough. Really tough. But so good, at the same time. We knocked out everything but meat, vegetables, nuts, and some dairy. Oh, and rice cakes. LOTS OF RICE CAKES. I  missed my coffee. But I hadn’t felt that connected to my food in years. I hadn’t really tasted food in so long. When’s the last time you really tasted your food? That’s what I thought. I could weep when I bite into a really ripe peach, the juice dotting my chin in a sort of explosive food confetti. I heave sighs of relief when I get that first sip of either crappy work coffee or a perfectly steamed, perfectly brewed latte. I offer up a true prayer, maybe some of the truest prayers I’ve ever prayed, when I enjoy dinner with my husband in our deep companionship or a slap-stick dinner with true friends. Food opens us up--it satisfies our first needs. Eat and be filled, so you can be filled with the goodness of the Lord. Drink and be quenched so you can be filled with the goodness of whatever company you find yourself in, whether you’re alone or with your best friend or your favorite family member. If your food is crappy, your conversation will probably suffer. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds right. Well, I suppose you could get by for a while, but over time, your body will start to complain and you won’t be able to enjoy much of anything.

It’s unnatural to not care about food. I think we all do, really, deep down. Why else are there so many  sad and frustrated people who struggle with weight and self-image? We have lost our true relationship with food. We are disconnected. So we grab whatever’s there, whatever’s available, whatever we don’t have to cook ourselves. Chesterton described the polygamist as not actually enjoying sex too much; rather he has lost his appreciation for sex by having many lovers, forgetting how it was meant to be enjoyed. This is true of food, too. And wouldn't you know that of course, I found a renewed appreciation of food in a crazy diet by fasting from what I thought I wanted.

Oh yes! You bet I sat on the couch and cried. I laid in bed and cried, thinking of giving up my bread, my peanut butter, my pasta, my coffee, my cookies, my chocolate, the things that I used for comfort during the day, and my whole life, really. Any day is filled with any number of vexations, of griefs, of confusions. Food is such a constant. I know exactly how that chocolate in my desk drawer will taste, even though I have no idea what’s waiting for me in the next hour. I know exactly how much comfort exists in a big bowl of pasta and alfredo sauce after a long day…like snuggling deep into a pile of blankets fresh from the dryer. Here is the kicker…that is GOOD. In itself, food is meant as a huge present from our Creator. Proverbs advises to give wine to those in bitter distress. Our Lord knows we are but dust. He knows we need good food when we wake up, in the middle of our work day, after a long day of working. Maybe He even knows we need a nice cup of hot chocolate before bed sometimes. He is a good God, a good Father. He knows what we need before we need it, after all.

Sadly, even our relationship with food, one that God meant to be good and full of satisfaction, I believe, was tainted by the Fall. The final rip from relationship from God on that fateful day was one of food, wasn’t it? When Eve opened her mouth and sank her teeth into what was forbidden; when Adam tasted what was not meant for him, all was lost. They wanted the fruit because they were told not to have it, because it was the means to an end, to power, to knowledge, not because they wanted it for pleasure, for enjoying it in the moment, like how presents from God are meant to be received. This is probably why diets usually don’t work. Our motivations matter to God, and to ourselves. God had not meant them to taste this fruit because it was not good for them. He wasn’t being a big meanie. He was only thinking of their good. Just like what I tell my body when it wants not just a cookie, but seventeen.

I can only imagine what that fruit tasted like. Did it taste good going down, like how half a pan of brownies tastes, or a half-pound cheeseburger? Or did that first bite confirm everything God had told them about it? Did it leave a small round lump in the pit of their stomach, or just too full like after Thanksgiving with all the fixings? Did they lean against the tree it came from and puke their guts out in sorrow, like a repentant bulimic? Did they feel dirty and greasy all over, like they’d rubbed a bacon maple bar all over their faces? And the final terrible question I want to ask, but maybe not want to know the answer to, is…did they care? Did they sit in the satisfied stuffed stupor of the glutton with smeared egg on their faces, or were they  in mourning right away for what they had done to their bodies, to their minds?  Did Adam and Eve feel all their relationships, with God and themselves and their bodies, break right away? Or were they so dead and full inside they couldn’t feel at all? And what did God think when He saw them partake and eat? Did He feel a lightening bolt of sorrow in His chest, a plunging sorrow in His belly? Did He feel it before He saw it? He must have felt the disconnection right away, the end of what had been so precious, that communion as they walked in the cool of the day together.

But even in food, there is redemption, isn’t there? Even in that terrible ironic Fall, mirroring our season of autumn, with the promise of summer dying and only a hard winter to come, God Himself made clothes for them. He set them to work, to make their own food, to work the land with their own hands. I know that most people see that as a punishment, and I suppose it was in part, and maybe the satisfaction I feel in preparing a meal after a long day is part of the Fall lingering to this day, but I don’t really think so. I think God provided this small joy in the middle of great sorrow. To work something good out of something so evil. We can still work with our hands and make something good, something akin to that old communion our ancestors had in the Garden with our God, something like walking about in the cool of the day. Perhaps they walked with cold glasses of lemonade or a corndog dipped in mustard. People talk about real things over food, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this grand tradition started in the Garden in the beginning.

In the meantime, we still have broken relationships with food, don’t we? Our bodies rebel, weakened by the Fall and by heredity and by environment, and any other number of reasons. Too many spices give us heartburn and dairy gives us flem and too many treats at Christmas give us a head-cold in January. Worse, we crave what is bad for us, either the wrong foods altogether or our-of-control portion size. Especially in this Western world,  I think we must temper our attitudes and our appetites with thanks. Whatever you do, said Paul to the Colossians, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks. Giving thanks for our food and our drink, our daily communion with our Father, will mend both our hearts and bodies. Only then can we truly taste our food, our daily gift of manna from God. Only then will we will taste and see that the Lord is good, whatever we choose to eat. Paul also said not to let anyone judge you for what you eat or drink, for the substance belongs to Christ. Realizing, for the first time in my life, that Christ cares about what I eat, makes every meal communion, every bite of bread sacred, every sip of water holy.