As Christmas draws ever more near, we joyfully look forward to our celebration of Jesus’ birth. We look back at the blessed event and rejoice in a promise fulfilled, a Saviour born. 

In the years and centuries before Christ’s birth, God’s people waited in joyful expectation, for a Saviour promised, but One who had not yet come. Throughout the Old Testament, God calls his people to joyfulness. 

When we take time to reflect on what God has done for us and offer him our very best—in time, effort, skills, gifts—the inevitable response of our souls is joy.

The Bible is clear that joy comes from God (Neh. 8:9-10), and our joy is a product of what God has done and continues to do. It is gladness and contentedness flowing out of the well-spring of God’s faithfulness and mercy, quite independent of our circumstances. The Psalmist writes, “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it…Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness” (Psalm 96:11-13). 

Our joy is anchored in the knowledge that God fulfilled his promise. It is important to remember that the joy we have in Christ is not seasonal or situational. Like the joy of the ancient Israelites, our joy is a response to what God has already done and continues to do.

When Christ came and dwelt among his people, he was their rabbi or teacher. He taught them about God’s love and urged them to remain in him, saying “I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!” (John 15:11). It is a kind of joy, grounded in thankfulness for the first Advent of Jesus Christ and looking forward toward his second coming, that is a marker of faithful believers.

Today, our joy, fuelled by the Holy Spirit, is what God uses to spread his joy throughout the world. Mother Teresa once said “Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.” True biblical joy is what God calls us to, and it is a joy that endures whether we’re in the throes of cheerful Christmas anticipation or the lows of post-holiday blues. So, this Advent (and beyond), will you respond to God’s call to be joyful?

adapted from an article 26.11.18 by Robin Basselin