Waiting with Joy
The third week of Advent focuses on joy, and on Sunday the pink candle was lit beside the flames of the flickering purple candles beside it. Advent is a time of waiting, a time of darkness and long stretched-out silence before the great light and the revelrous celebrations of the king’s coming. And yet the third Sunday of Advent, in Advent, speaks of joy. This poses a question, at least to my mind: can the two (waiting and joy) be reconciled?
Before delving into this question, I want to look at a few quotations concerning joy to see what possible insights they hold for our topic of discussion. The first is a Bible verse from James: “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy” (James 1:2). Here trials are equated with joy: joy is given as a name to describe difficulties and darknesses that inevitably appear along the human journey. What’s more, no qualifications or conditions are applied to these trials. Instead, they are considered joy whenever they arise, not only in specific circumstances or at specific times. The verse does not say that trials can be considered joy, but that they are nothing but joy and they are so in all times and in all places and regardless of external factors.
The next quotation about joy is also from the Bible, this time in Romans: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). In this verse, the source of joy is made explicit. It does not flow merely from a human wellspring which we must fill and keep filled from our own efforts and energies. Rather it surges from a divine supply: the experience of joy on earth is only made possible by the Holy Spirit, and the spirit is invested with a power that transcends the limited nature of any and all human achievement. The other thing I find most interesting and important about this verse, in connection to our discussion of joy, is the result of such an experience of joy. Once filled with joy, the person can “abound in hope.” Thus joy, while an experience of fulfillment and a thing of beauty in its own right, is also tied to hope, which gazes towards something aspired to but not yet attained.
The last quotation I want to discuss here is from one of my favourite writers, Henri J.M. Nouwen: “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” Perhaps these words seem to approach a contradiction with the preceding quotation, which attributes joy to the Holy Spirit. But there is no conflict between these two facets of joy, revealed in these two short but illuminating sentences. Although God is the ultimate source of joy, this joy is channeled through the free will of human beings in their individual lives. The joy is not achieved by human beings- it is always a gift. But we have to choose to accept this gift, without feeling as though we do not deserve it or must earn it ourselves.
All of this leads me to back to my original question: Can joy be reconciled with waiting? Can joy thrive, can joy flourish in the midst of darkness? I think that it can. Here, in order to assent to the pervasiveness and continuity of joy, we must distinguish between joy and happiness. While happiness is often dependent on external circumstances, joy does not need to have any grounding in physical reality. We don’t need a logical, justifiable reason for joy in order to receive the gift of joy. Rather, trials are joys, and periods of waiting and silent nights are joys as well.
Joy is also intertwined with hope, and the experience of joy leads to hope. This shows not only that joy can be experienced during Advent, but that it is an essential aspect of the spirit of the Advent season, which is all about expectant hope and purposeful, belief-laced waiting. And yet Nouwen’s words here hold true: we must choose joy in the times of waiting, we must choose joy in the face of darkness. Joy rests on a foundation which is a belief in the existence and immutability of light even in the sombre bleakness of night. Too many times we question the gift of joy; we view it with suspicion and uncertainty. We doubt it would be able to fulfill us; we doubt that we deserve it; we doubt that it is really good.
What would happen instead if this Advent, we gave ourselves permission to unwrap the gift of joy and to unwrap it “every day”? What would happen if we kept this light burning bright in our hearts, with the belief that it belongs to us indeed, that God desires for us to experience it deeply and truly, and to be filled not just with a little but with an abundance of hope?