Isaiah 9: 2–7; Psalm 96; Titus 2: 11–14; Luke 2: 1–20
This is a homily by
Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Saturday,
December 24, 2016.
“JOY, GLADNESS OR HAPPINESS?”
(Homily text: Luke 2: 1–20)
With
Christians around the world this Christmas season, we will sing this familiar
carol this evening:
“Joy
to the world, the Lord is come.”
Our
Gospel text for this evening also contains the word joy: “In that region, there were shepherds living in the fields,
keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood
before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were
terrified. 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: To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who
is the Messiah….” (Luke 2: 8 – 11)
If we
do a word search of the Bible, we will find entries for three words which seem
to be related: happy (happiness), gladness and joy.
Using a good concordance to see how the original Hebrew and Greek words are
translated into English, we find that there are about twice as many entries for
joy as there are for happiness and gladness.
And
if we consult a good dictionary, we will find that the definitions for happiness, gladness and joy each
seem to use the other two words to define the third word, at least in
part. (I can’t resist saying that though
such a practice might shed some light on the meaning of each word, there might
be limitations when the words are used somewhat interchangeably to describe the
meaning of the others.)
Checking
the definitions of these three words, there seems to be a progression in
meaning for the three. My own personal assessment goes something like this:
Happiness:
Seems to be connected to a specific event. For example, if a child we
know gets good grades on a report card, that is cause for happiness. The
specific report card is the reason to be happy.
Gladness:
Seems to be a longer-range sense of overall happiness, contentment and
satisfaction. For example, if this same child brings home more than one good
report card, the adults in that child’s life would tend to have a sense of gladness about the child’s continuing success
in school.
Joy: Seems to be an
enduring reality, a long-range reality. Joy eems to be a quality of life.
Indeed, one of the Bible dictionaries in my library defines joy in just such a
way, where the Scriptures are concerned. Using the example of the child with
the good grades and the good report card as an illustration, if the child
continues to do well in school, year after year, and continues to grow into
being a wonderful person, then that is cause for joy, great joy.
Returning
to the idea of joy as it is related to the Lord’s birth, or – in the words of
the angel – “good news of great joy”, cause for joy seems to be related
directly to God’s continuing presence with His people.
Here
we come to the essence of the Christmas message: That God cared enough to send
His very self, His only-begotten Son, Jesus, to take upon Himself our humanity.
That God chose to come among us in circumstances that were filled with the
darkness of oppression by the Roman occupation of the Holy Land, and by the
hardships and trials that filled people’s lives 2,000 years ago – we must
remember that life in the time that the Lord came along us was a time with very
little reason to hope for a better time in the future – God’s gift of Jesus gave
God’s people hope for the future, the assurance that God had not abandoned
those He had chosen to be His own.
And
so the light of God came into the darkness of the world. It came when the Lord
was born in the manger in Bethlehem. That light continues to come into the
world in the darkness of the age and time in which we live, for – as we read in
John’s gospel account: “The light (of Jesus Christ) shines in the darkness, and
the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1: 5)
For
those who have seen the light of God, made known in Jesus Christ, that abiding
and enduring light creates a new and enduring quality to life, a quality which
is marked by joy. For joy is a far deeper reality than happiness. Joy is able
to outlast and overcome the ups and downs of everyday
living. Joy allows us to endure with God, knowing ourselves to be united to God
through Jesus Christ, a relationship that will outlast this earthly life, and
will endure into eternity.
Thanks
be to God!
AMEN.
