Sometimes joy –or at least potential joy—can be scheduled. For fans of the University of Pittsburgh football team, the time for potential joy to start was 8 PM this past Saturday. Pitt was playing in the Conference Championship game, and a win would mean the fans would experience joy. Of course, a loss would mean no joy. Joy ensued for Pitt fans—and no joy for the fans of Wake Forest, who lost.

But joy cannot always be scheduled—that wasn’t how it happened for the shepherds who ended up visiting the newborn Jesus in the stable. There they were that night, doing their job, grazing their sheep in the fields like any other night. Not much excitement, nothing out of the ordinary. Then an angel shows up, and what they experienced at first wasn’t even remotely like joy. When the angel came before them, and “the glory of the Lord” shone about them, there were “terrified”—or as the King James Version puts it, “sore afraid”. Luke’s gospel says, “[T]he angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). Terror rarely if ever turns to great joy, but it does here, as they go to visit the one who is the Messiah—less than a day old, but still the Messiah. The joy they experienced that day was a complete and utter surprise, with no anticipation of any kind that they, or all people, would be the first to visit Jesus. Sometimes joy surprises us.

               Christmas is a reminder that joy can come to us at times we don’t expect—and that joy is something that we may indeed even be able to discover in the most unexpected of circumstances. With the reminder of God-with-us, we may find an unexplainable joy in the midst of sorrow—not that we’re happy that we’re sad, but that we’re grateful for God “getting” how we feel, and feeling it with us. With the reminder of God-with-us, we may find that the humdrum, sometimes seemingly interminable day-to-day routine has a quiet but certain feeling of reassurance that God sustains us in it, and brings us through it to some exciting new thing that we can’t anticipate but know might be coming—and we feel that spark of joy, perhaps faint, but still clearly there. And with the reminder of God-with-us, we find we have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand that “heaven and nature sing” and that “fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy!”  The whole creation experiences joy at God’s gracious gift of God’s self, come to be with us!

               God comes in Jesus to be God-with-us. “Joy to the world!”

PSALTER Psalm 96:11-13

11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
   let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12   let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
13   before the Lord; for he is coming,
   for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
   and the peoples with his truth.

GOSPEL Luke 1:39-45

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

GOSPEL Luke 2:8-11

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.