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Retelling Christmas: A Story of Joy
This past Sunday, I got to speak about the joy we find in the Christmas narrative. Pretty much everybody who discovered what God's plan is - and that they get to be involved in it - are filled with joy.
You know what? I don't like ending a sentence with the word 'joy' and a period.
Joy needs to have an exclamation point after it.
Joy!
JOY!
That's better. Okay, back to the blog post:
But it's not just at Christmas that people discover JOY! regarding God's plans:
Matthew records a story on Easter Sunday (I know, I know, now talking about Easter at Christmas. I shouldn’t do that...)
Anyways, Matthew tells us about some women heading to Jesus’ tomb on what would become known as Easter Sunday. When they arrive, they find an angel has rolled away the stone and the angel shares with them the news that Jesus has risen.
Here's what happens next:
Matt 28:8 “The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great JOY!, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message.” (emphasis mine)
These women discovered something God was doing, and it filled them with JOY! These women got to be the first people to share the Gospel.
(Just quick side note here. If you're a woman and you feel that God is calling you to ministry, what more authority do you need than the fact that God chose women to be the very first messengers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? God's gifts are not separated by gender. That's my riff on that.)
The bottom line is that if you want JOY! in your life, find out what God is up to and get involved.
This doesn't mean you won't have difficult time and circumstances arise. But if we remember that God is all about renewing and restoring all of creation and we get to be a part of that, there's a JOY! at the core of that which no circumstance or situation can ever fully smother.
So share the message of JOY! that the God who made us and knows all about us loves us and wants to have a relationship with us, because this is not something we're supposed to hold onto and hoard. God was pleased to share this JOY! with us, now we should go forth and share it with others.
Put other people first by volunteering.
Do something randomly nice like paying for the check of a family at a restaurant without them knowing
Give a Christmas present to somebody totally not expecting one from you (and tell them not to go get you one, but give something to charity if they feel a need to reciprocate).
Tell stories of JOY! in your life this Christmas in honor of the God who shouted it to us through his own son Jesus!
Why Easter?
When Jesus made the greatest sacrifice - willingly dying to accept the penalty for the sins, one of the last things he said was ‘it is finished.’
In other words, what he wanted to accomplish on the cross was done. For all time. No further sacrifice for sin would ever need to be made. When you or I screw up, Jesus doesn’t have to get back up on the cross to take care of it.
So why Easter?
Why raise from the dead?
Sin has been paid for.
Because Jesus didn’t just come to forgive our sin. He came to give us a new life. He came so that once sin was no longer anchoring us, we would then be able to unfurl our sails and start a journey, an adventure of living.
If Jesus was still laying in his tomb today, it means our sins would be paid for, but that there would be no power available for us to take advantage of that.
In John 10:10, Jesus says that he came not only so that they work of the enemy would be broken in our lives, but that we may have a more abundant life.
God doesn’t want you to solemnly sit around and acknowledge that he died for our sins. He wants us to understand that, then start to LIVE.
We’re not sitting around waiting to get to heaven. God has placed heaven inside of us. And it’s the job of believers in Jesus to give it away!
We don’t just serve a God of forgiveness and mercy.
We serve a God of rebirth and resurrection and renewal.
What was broken isn’t just fixed, it’s been completely overhauled and restored to it’s originally intended glory.
As you celebrate Easter with your family, know that God is for you, God is with you, and God won’t let anything stand in the way of you connecting with him. Not even death.