Joy

Friends, we made it! Through the preparations and the passion, our presence with another as we receive God’s promise—we made it! We have arrived at Christmas, the arrival of the Light of the world who brings joy to the people living in great darkness. Do you identify with those people? On this eve of the birth of the Savior, do you feel like the people living in great darkness? Do your congregants?

If your answer is yes, you are not alone. And this of all days is not the day to ignore the darkness, to pretend that all that hurts and harms in our world doesn’t exist. That’s not the message of Christmas. No, if you feel like the people who live in great darkness, Christmas is especially for you. Because on this day, in the city of David, the Light has come. The Light who persists and spreads in the darkness. The Light who continues to thrive within the darkness. The Light who does not hide what is wrong but makes what is wrong known. The Light who does not erase all that is wrong but redeems what is wrong with the joy of God’s persistent Love. The Light who shows us how to discern the difference between darkness that does harm and darkness that reaffirms the beauty of our humanness, the darkness of evil versus the darkness of reacting to a world in which we do so much harm to one another. Author Glennon Doyle talks about life as “brutiful,” the simultaneous beauty and brutality of living as humans who feel pain and yet find beauty in pain. Joy resists evil and persists in the “brutifulness” of life.

One of the ways we express the joy of Christmas is to embrace our traditions. If you always sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” at the beginning of the Christmas Eve service, do it! If you always end the service turning down the lights, giving everyone a candle, and spreading the light across the dark space while you sing “Silent Night”—go for it! Both of these are not only beautiful traditions, but also entirely appropriate to this worship service and to this worship series as a whole. As you shift from purple to white paraments, consider how you might maintain some consistency between the Advent and Christmas altarscapes. Maybe you keep some of the candles, add a bit of purple to the white, or bring back the empty stable from week one, now full of all the usual characters. Keep in mind that Christmas does not erase or reverse Advent—how we wait in Advent ties directly to what we receive in Christmas. So, what are the ways you make this connection in visuals, music, and rituals for your congregation?

Finally, consider what moments in worship will allow your people to wonder and to ponder just as the shepherds wondered and Mary pondered in Luke 2. The connection between joy, awe, and reflection is almost palpable in today’s text. How will you bring those actions and postures to life for your congregation? Perhaps you will begin with loud and joyful hymns, move into the proclamation of the story, and end with meditative prayer and hymn singing. Or maybe you will flow in and out of joy and reflection, awe and quiet before ending the service with a joyous rendition of the final verse of “O Come, All Ye Faithful”: Yea, Lord we greet Thee, born this happy morning…! There are so many choices we can make as we plan and lead our congregations as we rejoice at the arrival of the Christ Child, the Light of the world.