OldSoul.blog

The traditional theme for the third week in Advent is Joy. It’s a theme that pervades the Christmas season – we read about it, sing about it, speak about it, and celebrate it. But as I write this reflection, the focus on Joy feels more than a little incongruous. This week has confronted us with ‘unjoyful’ news: a school shooting in Wisconson, USA; a devastating earthquake in Vanuatu; continuing death and destruction in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Ukraine, Russia … … the list goes on. And we read about families rocked by grief in the season of Advent: a motorcyclist dies in a road accident, two young women die from alcohol poisoning in Laos, fractured relationships create family tension, etc., etc. … …

Where does Joy fit in a week such as this?  How is our celebration of Joy to be understood in these contexts?  Is Joy a realistic expectation in a world where, for so many people, life comes hard? 

Just yesterday, cartoonist Michael Leunig died at the age of 79. I didn’t know Michael Leunig personally – although his work did profoundly inform my theological education and has inspired and illustrated many of my sermons over the years – but as I pondered his passing I was surprised to find myself anchoring into the grief I felt/feel over my father’s death four years ago. Why is that? I suspect it is because, like the death of my father, the death of Leunig highights the joy/sorrow conundrum. Leunig’s wise, amusing, prophetic, confronting cartoons/poems/writings that brought us such joy serve also to deepen our sense of loss. And the sadness we may feel at his passing, heightens our gratitude for what he shared with us. I felt that conundrum acutely when my father died – the grief of my loss juxtaposed with the joy of having had him in my life!

It seems that they are twins, these emotions we know as joy and sorrow.  They may seem to be opposites, but they are twins.  Indeed, sorrow is a consequence of joy.  We would not know sorrow if we had not first enjoyed!  And conversely, it is when we have known great happiness in a relationship that we feel its loss more deeply.  Sorrow may well be the price we pay for joy.  But that will not stop us seeking joy, because we know the experience of joy helps sustain us amidst the challenges that life inevitably throws at us. You may not have expected to be hearing about sorrow in this third week of Advent, but we can’t address the theme of Joy without embracing our sorrow!

Indeed, this motif – the joy/sorrow conundrum – is embedded in the gospel stories we hear through Advent:

• You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? are the opening words of the gospel passage set down for Advent 3 [Luke 3:7-18]. The preaching of John the Baptist is a strange mix of good news about the coming of the Messiah and dire warnings about the consequences of it.
• In Luke 2:25ff, Simeon blesses the baby Jesus in the temple as a light for revelation and for glory, but warns Mary with the words, a sword will pierce your own soul.
• In Matthew 2, the ‘wise men’ from the east come to venerate the baby Jesus but their story is told against the backdrop of King Herod’s murderous intent.

The joy we celebrate in this third week of Advent is not a superficial, lightweight, tinsel-dressed, sugar-coated happiness.  It is a joy born of struggle, a joy tinged with sorrow, a joy that is deeply anchored in our soul, a joy that sustains us for all the messy stuff with which life is mixed!

That’s the sort of joy into which I was anchored as I pondered the state of the world, the death of Michael Leunig and the loss of my own father. A joy that can be felt and grasped even as grief weighs heavily. A joy that doesn’t negate sorrow, doesn’t deny the challenges, doesn’t magically fix the messiness of life, but a joy which, having been experienced, empowers us to address the challenges, to deal with the messiness, to pursue that which is life-giving despite the sorrow. That’s the nature of the Joy we celebrate in this third week of Advent.

How might we cultivate such joy in our lives?  I’m not sure that we do need to cultivate it – I think perhaps it’s there within us and we simply need to notice it, attend to it.  But here are a few things that might help us notice … …

1. Assurance. To live with an assurance that things are basically OK is important in creating the space for joy.  For me, this has to do with believing, sometimes despite signs to the contrary, that God – the creative force at the centre of all existence – is unquestionably benevolent and seeks to work in partnership with us for the betterment of all.
2. Presence. To attend to the moment rather than regret the past or yearn for some utopian future enables us to ‘notice’ things: the delights of nature, the smile on the faces of people, the wonder of the stars, etc., etc., and such noticing will evoke joy, will replenish the well of joy that is planted deep within all of us, will invite joy into our experience of life.
3. Connection. To cherish relationships with people, with animals, with nature is to discover the deep awareness that we never walk alone. This, after all, is the sign and the truth of Christmas: that God (however you conceive of God) has not abandoned us. The proclamation of Emmanuel – God with us – is the central message of Christmas. Whether you read the birth narratives as historical fact or as ‘truth’ in the broader sense, the affirmation that we never walk alone is central to the idea of Christmas, and foundational to a life of deep joy.

The joy/sorrow conundrum is an inevitable tension in life – these twin emotions travel together, bouncing off each other as we meander from moment to moment.  May we learn to embrace both emotions: may our joy be found in tears and laughter, in mourning and dancing. May our spirits be infused with the Deep Joy that issues from the Divine Spirit of Creation, enabling us to live joyfully in all things and empowering us to be joy-givers in all places and to all people. 

David Brooker (20^th December 2024)

Vale Michael Leunig