Joy – Advent 2011

Hymns, like Scripture, need to be understood in the context of the time, place, and culture in which they’re written.

Joy to the World was penned by Isaac Watts almost three hundred years ago. It was originally written about Christ’s return, not Jesus’ birth; but would anyone today even consider singing it on Easter Sunday?

Atheists and others point to the blatant triumphalism of terms like “King” and “Saviour reigns” as evidence of Christianity’s hostility to other faiths, while literalists find justification for their views in the “Zeus-god” imagery of the same lines.

Oh well.

For me, what’s always been appealing about Joy To The World is its inclusiveness. Pretty much everything in Creation (or the universe if you prefer) is named in one way or another – heaven and nature; fields, floods, rocks, hills, plains, individuals and nations. Every heart is touched by “the wonders of his love.”

But it has to be played and sang with energy and excitement to capture the meaning. Those somber choral renditions leave me cold. When it’s done well, the biggest problem I have is that the emotions well up so much that I can’t keep singing because I’m so choked up. Not because Christ is “returning” or even “reconciling” (a term at least as bad in my opinion) but because the Nativity is a reminder – a confirmation – of the inseverable agapé relationship that we share with God and all things.

When I hear the words of Joy To The World I don’t see the adult Jesus expounding his ministry in synagogues and on dusty hilltops. I see a child in a manger; a baby full of potential and promise. I feel the same sense of Joy and pride that I felt when I first saw each of my own children, magnified by the symbolism of the Nativity to represent the Joy and pride embodied in the opportunity to transform the world.

An opportunity that’s reborn with every child, no matter where or when they’re conceived.

And yet …

The 3^rd verse, often omitted, also reminds us that it’s an opportunity and potential that all too often goes unfulfilled.

We don’t need to look far to know that there are millions who live with little to be joyful about. That famine, poverty, war, persecution and oppression are almost as widespread now as they were two thousand years ago; that we all too often do not love our families as “ourselves”, let alone our neighbours and others farther removed from us; that while we have certainly made progress in how we could treat each other and the world, if we’re truly honest with ourselves, the progress we have made falls far short.

That may not bother the literalists who, after all, don’t expect the world to change and who believe that their “reward” is in heaven in any case. Nor does it bother the atheists, who see the world as nothing more than a collection of random acts and conscience as just a tool for evolutionary survival.

But what about the rest of us?

What about those of us who understand that the promise of Emmanuel is neither some supernatural intervention nor some otherworldly utopia, but a symbol of what this world could be, right here, right now?

Where do we find the Joy in a world that is so much less than it could be?

For me, I look again to the parallels between the Nativity and my own family.

The world was far from perfect when my children were born. But when I first saw each of them, I wanted to make it better. I wanted to be better. Frankly, I didn’t succeed very well. I made mistakes. I got things wrong more than I got them right. There were tears and heartache.

But there was also laughter and love. There were, and still are, times of sharing and caring. And always, no matter what else there was, there was the knowledge that we were, and are, and will continue to be, inseverably connected.

That alone is reason for unbounded Joy.

It’s like that with God too.

We may not have changed the world – yet –  but Christmas is a reminder, year after year, that there is reason to keep trying.

Because we and God are inseverably connected. And that too is reason enough for unbounded Joy.