The Challenge
What do people have in their Christmas celebrations, and their lives in general, that is a greater expression of “good news of great joy”[1] than what Jesus the Christ did for us through his coming into the world, laying down his life in love, and securing an eternal victory over sin and death?
Along with my pastoral work, I help my wife operate a family daycare in our home. For some years, we have been applying a principle called returning children to joy.[2] It is impossible to maintain constant rejoicing when life continually interrupts us with painful and sorrowful experiences. A return to joy is regularly required.
In fact, just this morning, a friend’s dad passed away. For her family, this Christmas season is now associated with loss and grief. Such things are so inescapable that any discussion of God, and joy, must address the very worst things that can happen to us.
The question is, how does “joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory”[3] relate to the greatest heartaches and sorrows of our lives? The corresponding question would be, what does anyone have that gives them greater help in facing the worst heartaches and sorrows of life than what is offered to us in a personal relationship with the Living God who created us?
One of the issues of joy for me has been twenty-five years worth of stories of God ministering his word to my heart in everything I have faced. There have been deaths, lost relationships galore, discoveries of childhood trauma, loss of career, and regular reminders that my need for Jesus is much BIGGER than I normally want to admit. In all of it, there has been daily comfort of the God-sized-measure, something clearly designed to return God’s children to joy.
Today’s ministry from God’s Book addressed such things with these words:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.[4]
When I speak of the joy that comes from God, I am talking about the person who is “the Father of mercies”. This means that everything we can think of as mercy originates in him. He loves to be merciful. He loves to treat sinners differently than they deserve. He loves to withhold judgment and offer us opportunities for forgiveness instead.
He is “the God of all comfort”. This means that comfort also originates with him. He loves to offer comfort for sorrow, and heartache, and guilt, and shame, and fear. He loves to comfort the oppressed, and proclaim good news to the poor. It is in his very nature to respond to our loss and grief with comfort.
When God’s mercy and comfort combine to comfort his children, we receive a kind of comfort that is sufficient for both ourselves and others. This speaks of the God-sized measure used in returning his children to joy. In some cases, God will minister his comfort to one person in order to do a special work of returning that child to joy. In other cases, he will focus the overflow of his comfort in one child of God to bless another with the same comfort. In this way, the joy-bond is strengthened in relationships between God and people at the same time.
There is an old proverb that states, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”[5] There are night-times of grief we all will face, but God is always with his people. We walk with one another through the dark nights of sorrow, and we comfort one another with the comfort we have received from our Father who is in heaven. Together, we experience the work of a Father who delights to return us to joy.
What does this have to do with Christmas? Simply that Christmas celebrates the amazing and awesome work of God in which he sent his Son into the world in order to so satisfy his own justice against our sins that he could then bring us into love-relationship with him forever.
What was first announced as “good news of great joy” continues to shine into our hearts with such a relationship with God through Jesus Christ that it does indeed give us “joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory”. And, it shines all the more brightly when facing our greatest heartaches and sorrows. Any contenders must show that they have something superior to a relationship with the God of all comfort who personally comforts us in our painful experiences so we have comfort to share with others in order that we all are returned to joy. Eternal joy.
© 2017 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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