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To rejoice, to be joyful, is the apostolic and angelic command, and the message of this Advent. The news is “good” and “of great joy,” the angels declared to the shepherds, half asleep and perhaps imbibed.[1] “Rejoice,” says Paul, “always;” it’s an exhortation, a command.[2] The merriness of our merry Christmas: this is where it comes from—from angels and from apostles. “Rejoice!” the Church says to us today. It is her primeval and original decree.
But, of course, joy is easier said than done, and for all sorts of reasons, especially this year. The world, the pandemic, the nation, the news, your neighbors, yourself—all of them, or maybe just one of them: sometimes these conspire against joy, make it impossible. We all know the contrasts, the countervailing emotions. The lights, the carols, the sadness, the arguments—‘tis the season for all of it. This, a season meant for joy, the most wonderful time of the year, Andy Williams said; sometimes it just underlines the sadness of all of it. It is what it is, the good, the bad, and the ugly—Merry Christmas if you can.
But is that it? Is that the final truth, the cold, blunt truth—merry Christmas if you can, be joyful if you can? This is a season meant for joy; ours is a life—yours a life—meant for joy. You are meant be happy, created for it. But, clearly, it’s difficult. Clearly, people seek happiness and often fail. They try to buy happiness, drink happiness, marry happiness. In a thousand ways, pathetic and perverted and demented, people have sought happiness and not got hold of it. For many, it just never seems to work. As André Gide said once (that strange immoral novelist), “The terrible thing is that we can never make ourselves drink enough.”[3] That’s the truth, the tragedy repeated. Meant for joy, created for joy, but we don’t know how to find it, don’t know how to get it. Merry Christmas if we can; that’s just how it is for many of us, smiling all the while nonetheless.
But is that it? I haven’t answered my own question. You’ll be happy to know, hopefully not surprised, that I think no, that isn’t it—Merry Christmas if you can; I do think it’s possible. Joy is possible, I do believe it.
If joy is difficult for you, if you’ve not found it, please don’t give up. Keep looking, because it is real. Joy is real. It’s just you need to know how to find it, how to receive it. It’s really very simple. You just need to let your guard down a little and listen, for joy belongs only to the vulnerable and the childlike, and never to anyone else.
So how is joy received? First, you need to understand that joy is something that can only be received. Joy is only a gift. To quote the old philosopher Josef Pieper, “we are not the forgers of our own felicity.”[4] No matter how much you make or build or buy, none of it will do for real joy. It must come from somewhere else.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that Lutheran pastor and martyr and enemy of the Nazis, in a letter written from prison in 1943: he makes this very point. Prison allowed him to think about things, see things a little better. He wrote:
Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent; one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other—things really of no consequence—the door is shut, and can only be opened from the outside.[5]
We are not the makers of our own joy; the door is shut and can only be opened from the outside. You know what that means, locked sometimes in your personal prison. That’s the first step, the first thing to understand. That the door is shut and can only be opened from the outside. That joy is found beyond the self, beyond even your control. That it must be received as a gift. And that our hands must be empty; we must watch and wait for it.
But it’s not magic, not nameless or indistinct. Joy is not euphoria, some abstract feeling or experience. Joy has context, which is the second lesson, the second thing to understand. To experience joy is to experience joy about something; joy is a consequence of something. Parents rejoice in their children; children rejoice in their toys; teams rejoice in victory. Joy is a consequence of something.
But here is where a person must be careful. Saint Thomas Aquinas taught very simply that “possession of the good is the cause of delight.”[6] But what’s good? Well, we’re not very good at that, at figuring that out. Because that’s where we get sentimental and sinful and selfish. That’s where we choose Whataburger over salad, donuts over apples. That’s where we begin to get a bit deaf to wisdom and tradition, to scripture and truth. This is where we so often choose unwisely, like the prodigal son squandering it all on nothing, finding nothing at the end of it.[7] These are the people I meet on occasion, people who are lonely, and who know why.
We are not the makers of our own joy. It’s a gift we must receive. But still, joy comes only to those who possess the good, and so, in a certain sense, they must know how to choose what is good and reject what is bad. They must be formed, have taste for the good. They must be able to discern the good, discern the gift of the good. That’s the secret of joy, the only way you’ll find it. We must know to look for joy, and we must know what we’re looking for. That’s the game, the challenge.
Which is why what John the Baptist said is important, that “there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me.”[8] The Christ, God, the summum bonum, the highest good: that’s the cause of joy; he’s the cause of the only true joy, the joy of all other joys, the joy without which there is no joy.
Here, the evangelicals are right, your good Baptist neighbor; it’s Jesus you need if you ever want to be joyful, truly joyful. Keep looking into corners and bouncing into walls like a lab rat if you want; sometimes people need to wear themselves out with stupidity before they settle down for truth. But at some point, remember this, remember the gospel. Remember that the Word’s become flesh and dwells among us.[9] Remember that John pointed to Christ and said, “Look!”[10] Remember the promise of Christ that you can have life to the full, if just you’ll follow him.[11] Remember the priest: see him and hear him, speaking of sacramental joy: “Behold the Lamb of God.”[12]
Here we are, fools and sinners everyone, and here’s joy; here it is every day. It’s a gift. And it’s meant for you. You just have to want it, really want it. That’s the first and really the only thing you need to do to be a saint, and that’s to want to be one, to want joy. Really, that’s all it takes. Amen.
[1] Luke 2:10
[2] Philippians 4:4
[3] Josef Pieper, Happiness and Contemplation, 17
[4] Ibid., 25
[5] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 135
[6] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles 3.26.12. Cf. Happiness and Contemplation, 45
[7] Luke 15:13
[8] John 1:26
[9] John 1:14
[10] John 1:36
[11] John 10:10
[12] The Roman Missal
© 2020 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
