Joy > happiness

Sitting here with the tree lights on, in the stillness, I was thinking tonight about Christmas and I was contemplating how a song in a minor key can be so poignant at this time of year. I know everyone wants to make Christmas all happy, like a birthday party, but, while it definitely is amazing what Jesus came to do, I think it’s a different emotion than happiness that should be fixed upon. Happiness is fickle and superficial. It wanes and waxes, just like fun can do. It depends on its surroundings. It makes its surroundings an idol. But joy…joy is a different story. Joy is steadfast, even in the sorrows - and there will be sorrows. And, most importantly, joy understands reverence.

See Christmas isn’t a birthday party. We are not celebrating Jesus’ birthday on Christmas. He was not born as man was. He is God. He is from before time began. Infinite, eternal, uncreated. When people say, “oh, it’s His birthday!” it is saying He was a created being, which is false. We are putting a man-made, created being occurrence on Him. He was not created in Mary’s womb as a human baby is. What we are celebrating is that God stepped into time and space. The Author of Life stepped into the creation that He breathed into existence. The One who ever lived and will ever live, who sees our days from the beginning to the last in a glimpse, our divine God, came and took on a coat of flesh and walked among us in order to…die on a cross. Everyone always focuses on “oh we have to sing Christmas songs! Get those happy Christmas songs out!” But (besides the fact that every song could be a Christmas song since what we celebrate at Christmas we could be celebrating every other day of the year, but I digress) a “Christmas” song loses its weight if it is just happy for the sake of being “light and fun”” happy. One of the underlining messages of Christianity is about joy and hope - the joy and hope that we have in the midst of the ups and downs of this life BECAUSE of what Christ came to do. And joy, unlike happiness, does not diminish reality - that things in life happen. And it also doesn’t diminish reverence. There is a “woah”ness about Christmas songs that gets lost. Making it a party for a baby that was born is incorrect and making it about shepherds and wise men and how we can relate to those individuals and leave Christmas with a renewed vigour to just do what those people did, instead of focusing on their reverence, is moralism - that’s switching the view of the message to ourselves and how we can feel better about the story because it is applicable to us in giving us another bunch of things to do - our Jesus ands, our making us the saviours - instead of realizing the story is a heavy one, a weighty one, a meaningful one, a wondrously worshipful “more of Him, less of us” one. A focus on what Christ came to do for His people. A Groom who came pursuing His Bride. The God of the universe stepped into the earth to live a life we could not live so that He could die in our place and rise again to say that His people are saved by His work…sufficiently. There’s a reverence there because there’s an understanding that we, as dead humans spiritually-speaking could not make ourselves alive, and He came for the sole purpose of declaring His glory through the cross in saving His people.

So I’m not saying not to have some upbeat songs sung, because throughout the year - including Christmas - we can sing these to celebrate His work. But those considering the music to sing at this time of year please, please we need to scatter in the minor key songs, the weighty lyric songs that should be sung throughout the rest of the year, contemplative versions of songs so people can really mull over the words, the songs that grasp the understanding of what Christ was knowingly walking towards when He came - the cross. Because the focus on happiness and fun and birthday parties at Christmas skews the message - and in the case of the birthday thing it conveys a very false message in the first place. God never said that He promised us happiness - superficial, groundless fun and emotionalism. But He did say that His people would know Joy - a delight unshakeable that withstands the hardships and celebrations, the good times and sad times, the highs and lows - a delight that far, far surpasses anything happiness could ever bring, despite the difficulties, because it is rooted in Him, in a life lived in reverence to God who came and did the work that was needed for His people, for His glory alone.