James 1:2-4

On the face of it, there was absolutely nothing in the situation that would cause me to expect joy.  I was sitting in the living room of their home with Steve and Esther Jordan to plan Esther’s funeral.  She had been battling a rare cancer since shortly after I had been appointed to serve the Timmonsville, SC church.  As a matter of fact, I had accompanied them to Winston-Salem, NC to the Baptist Hospital when she went for surgery and chemotherapy.  They had opened up her abdomen, filled it with liquid chemo drugs and left it for a period of hours, then suctioned it out.  She had the procedure twice.  But the cancer was persistent and kept coming back.  There were no other treatment options left.

And so, even though Esther was feeling okay at the moment, she had decided it was time to talk about how we would celebrate her life.  That was the way she put it; we would celebrate her life.  Even though she was only in her mid-40s, she assured me that she had lived a full, happy life.  She had a great marriage to a man who had her back, no matter what, through the whole cancer nightmare.  She had lived long enough to see both her daughters married to good men, and her first grandchild.  She had a faith that was so strong and simple and visible.  She knew where she was going and had no fear of death.  And she didn’t want her family and friends to get stuck in grief after she was gone; she wanted them to remember her and smile.  And her plans for the service reflected that desire.  We would sing upbeat hymns, and the choir would sing her favorite, joyful anthem.  It would be a true celebration.

When I left Steve and Esther’s house that day, I realized that we had laughed more than we had cried, and that I had felt a powerful joy in the room.  Esther’s faith and love and openness in discussing her future had created a space for joy in the midst of sadness.  She wasn’t going to be depressed about her future, and she willed the rest of us to not be depressed either. 

For a Christian, joy is a way of life.  It isn’t a feel-good sensation when everything is going our way.  It isn’t the same thing as happiness, dependent on positive circumstances.  Joy is deeper than that.  Joy is something that is in our heart, but also in our soul.  Joy has to do less with us and more to do with God.  We have joy in our hearts because we are children of God, because we are in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, because the Holy Spirit lives inside of us.  We have the joy that James wrote about in the first chapter of his letter.

You might wonder at the sanity of a man who could write these words:  “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.”  I mean, think about it.  When you’re in the middle of a tough time, when you’ve lost a job, or a family member has died, or your child is being bullied in school, you don’t usually consider it a reason for joy.  When you are in the middle of a pandemic, and over 280,000 Americans have died, and you are waiting on a vaccine, you don’t think of it as a joyous period in history.  What kind of person would put “trials” and “joy” in the same sentence?

A man of great faith could write those words.  A man who had experienced suffering and found God in the midst of it could write those words.  A man who knew what trials could do to you and still held onto his faith could write those words.  “Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds.”  Where is the joy?  The joy is in knowing that you don’t face those trials alone; God is with us, even in the trials, even in the suffering, even in the pandemic.  Maybe God is with us especially in the trials and the suffering and the pandemic.  And because God is with us, because we know the peace and love and grace of God, we have joy.  Our joy is not based on our circumstances, or even on our feelings; it is based on that relationship.

The apostle Paul faced about as many trials and sufferings as any one man could in one lifetime.  He described some of the things he had been through in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28: I have … been in prison…, been flogged …, and been exposed to death again and again.  Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.  Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move.  I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers.  I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep.  I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.  Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

Let’s just take one example of what Paul went through.  He and Silas had traveled to Philippi, where a wealthy woman named Lydia had become a follower of Christ.  She invited them to stay with her while they remained in the city, and they were glad to accept.  While they were in Philippi, they encountered a slave girl who had a spirit which enabled her to predict the future.  Her owners made a lot of money having her tell people’s fortunes.  She followed Paul and Silas around for days, shouting at them and harassing them.  Paul got really annoyed by this, and he ordered the spirit to come out of the woman.  And it did.  As soon as her owners realized that they would no longer be able to make a profit with her, they dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace to face the authorities.  They accused Paul and Silas of getting the city riled up by advocating customs that were illegal for Romans to practice. 

The leaders ordered Paul and Silas to be stripped and beaten with rods.  And then, after they had been severely flogged, they were hauled away and thrown into prison.  The jailer was ordered to keep a careful watch over them, so he put them in an inner cell and put their feet in the stocks.  You might think that Paul and Silas would be broken by this, not only in body, but also in spirit.  You might expect them to pray to God to save them.  You might not be surprised if they were weeping.  But instead, Paul and Silas sang hymns.  They sang hymns!

Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song about this faith and joy of Paul.  It’s called What Kind of Joy is This? and it goes in part like this:

Anybody in their right mind would’ve given up their preaching and headed for home
They’d been warned a hundred times but something inside them keeps giving them hope
And just when you think they’d be crying instead of the tears, there’s joy in their eyes

Anybody else with his pain would want to shake their fist at heaven and give up the fight
’Cause trouble had been Paul’s middle name ever since he’d been captured by God’s blinding light
But just when his hope should be dying you listen and hear him singing a song

What kind of joy is this that counts it a blessing to suffer?
What kind of joy is this that gives the prisoner his song?
What kind of joy could stare death in the face and see it as sweet victory?
This is the joy of a soul that’s forgiven and free

What kind of joy is this?  What kind of joy is this?
What kind of joy is this the father has promised his children?
What kind of joy is this that Jesus came to reveal?
What kind of joy could give hope in this world to someone just like you and me?
This is the joy of a soul that’s forgiven and free

When I was home for Thanksgiving my freshman year in college, my brother got a beagle puppy.  Her name was Boots, because she had white feet.  I had Boots out in the front yard playing with her, when she took off towards the street.  I didn’t realize she could move that fast.  So I chased her and leapt out to grab her, and landed on my left knee.  That knee had already given me trouble, since I was in the 8th grade and was diagnosed with arthritis.  Now it really swelled up and was so painful that my mom had me see a doctor.  He put me on crutches and a straight leg brace to see how it did with rest.  It didn’t get any better.  So I went back to college with the brace and the crutches, and had to look forward to surgery when I came home for spring break.

In the meantime, the day before I was to go back to college, one of my best friends’ father died suddenly of a heart attack.  He wasn’t very old, maybe 50 or so.  I considered him a second dad.  Because I had to go back to college, I wasn’t even able to attend his funeral, so I had to do my grieving on my own at school.  It was kind of lonely in my sadness.

One day, after spring break when I came back to school on crutches (still) following my surgery, I was hobbling from the dorm to the library, loaded down with a heavy backpack.  One of my classmates caught up to me and we walked together.  She got a serious look on her face, and said to me, “You know, I just don’t get it.  You’ve been through so much this year, with your knee, and losing your family friend, and trying to get around campus on these crutches.  But it doesn’t even seem to get you down.  How do you do it?” 

I didn’t realize that anyone was paying that much attention to me.  And her question kind of floored me.  I guess I hadn’t been depressed about all the trouble I was going through; I just made a point to grin and bear it.  After all, complaining about it wouldn’t have changed the situation any.  But I didn’t realize anyone else noticed how I was coping with things.  I said to her, “I have gotten through all this because I depended on God.  I knew that God was with me all this time.”  She kind of nodded her head, and we walked on to the library.

When we have joy in our hearts, joy that refuses to leave the premises even under harsh circumstances, when we face trials and suffering, people notice.  They see the light of Jesus Christ in us.  They see that we have joy that defies explanation, except for our faith in God.

I look around me now in the midst of a national health crisis, in the midst of political turmoil and social unrest, and I ask, Where is the joy?  But then I take another look.  There is joy in the creative masks that people are wearing, from Christmas themes to dog faces to Disney characters, people are expressing a good sense of humor about things.  There is joy in the faces of the children who are looking forward to Christmas, as they decorate Christmas trees and bake cookies and write letters to Santa Claus.  There is joy in the way that we have been reminded of the precious gifts of family and friends, and that we will never take them for granted again.  There is joy in the way that people have offered to help those who are vulnerable, by doing their shopping or just visiting them through the window of their home or assisted living facility.  There is joy in the lights that people have put up in their yards to celebrate the season.  There is joy in remembering that in all that we are going through, God has never left us and will never leave us.  We are not walking through this valley of the shadow of death alone.  We have a loving Parent, an intimate Friend, and a trusted Companion walking with us. 

One of my favorite hymns is Joy to the World.  It gives the reason for our joy:  the Lord has come!  The joy that is embedded in my heart which no trial or time of suffering can ever remove is found in knowing that Jesus Christ is born.  God has come into this world as one of us.  And life has never been the same since that first Christmas night.

I hope you find joy in this season, in spite of what is going on in the world around you.  I hope that you feel the presence of God with you in unmistakable ways.  I hope you feel joy as you spend time with family and friends (safely).  Where is the joy?  It is right here, in our hearts.