Joy in the Middle

Joy. What comes to mind when you hear that word? Is it the image of a little yellow character with blue hair from Inside Out? Maybe you think of someone smiling. Maybe you think of a specific moment, like a graduation, a wedding or the birth of your child. Maybe the song "Joy to the World" starts playing in your head.

Maybe you've been asking yourself, "What happened to my joy?" Maybe it feels like joy took a trip to Hawai'i and left you here in the cold Canadian winter.

There are a few places in Scripture where joy is mentioned in relation to Christmas/Advent, so let's focus on Mary's joy.

The angel Gabriel visits Mary and tells her she will give birth to a son (spoiler alert: Jesus). He tells her that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and she will conceive. Mary responds with "I am the Lord's servant [...] may your word to me be fulfilled" (Luke 1:38 NIV). She visits her cousin Elizabeth, who is also miraculously pregnant. Elizabeth confirms what the angel said, calling her "the mother of my Lord."

And then Mary speaks...well, actually she sings. She breaks into song, like she's in a musical.

Read Luke 1:46-56

Mary sings out of the overflow of joy in her heart. It's tempting to think it's easy for her to have joy; she's going to be the mother of the Messiah. But her "yes" to God would've created a scandal. Mary would've been looked at sideways and whispered about. She was pregnant before marriage, carrying a child that wasn't her fiancé's and could be stoned to death for it.

If we compare Mary's circumstances to her song, the two don't quite match. You might expect her song to be about fear, yet it is joyful.

What is joy?

Joy is often relegated to a synonym for happiness. But they are not the same; happiness is a response to circumstances, and joy is deeper...

I love how the Bible Project describes joy: "It is an attitude God's people adopt, not because of happy circumstances, but because of their hope in God's love and promise." [1]

Mary has joy even though people were likely side-eyeing her, whispering, even though she didn't fully know what to expect (there was no "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book for a virgin birth).

Through it all, she chose to see God, rightly.

What do I mean?

Sometimes we unknowingly allow disappointment, fear, and pain to draw the picture of God we have in our heads. Rather than a carefully drawn portrait, we are left with a caricature in which certain features are exaggerated, and others minimized. Mary's joy comes from seeing God not through the lens of her circumstances, which could distort the picture, but through the lens of Scripture. Her song echoes the psalms and the prophets. She sees God as Saviour, Deliverer, Holy, Merciful and Just.

She spends most of the song singing about God's justice. She sings: He scatters the proud, brings down rulers, lifts the humble, fills the hungry and sends the rich away empty, which sounds like Robin Hood.

But God isn't stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. No, God is flipping the world's systems on the head and restoring creation to what it was always meant to be. A world where no one is above anyone else, power isn't abusive, and resources are shared instead of hoarded.

May says "He has... He has... He has..." we might think:
Really?
Has He?
Where?

The English doesn't do it justice; the "He has" in the Greek can refer to a completed past action or a future action. So she is saying He has and He will. Mary points us backwards to the faithfulness of God throughout history. How He has already begun to restore: to lift the humble and fill the hungry.

And then fast forward to Revelation 21:5 where it says, "I am making everything new!"

What does all of this mean?

Mary lived in the in-between: able to look back at what God has done, yet standing on the verge of what He was about to do (send Jesus). The in-between wasn't easy. Personally, it meant judgment from neighbours. For the world, it meant the systems were still broken.

As she looks at all of it, she sings a song of joy, not because everything is good but because she knows who God is.

Mary's song challenges us, who also live in the in between. Jesus has come, and He is coming. And the in between isn't easy. We live in a world where sin exists, life is not perfect, and people are not perfect, which means there is suffering.

And we are challenged to have joy in the middle.

To have joy in the season of grief.
To have joy when partnership development is not developing.
To have joy when life isn't going to plan.
To have joy when prayers seem unanswered.
To have joy when your health isn't 100%.
To have joy when it seems unjust.
To have joy when ________________.

To be clear, choosing joy is not choosing to live in denial. Joy is recognizing things exactly as they are, but also recognizing God for exactly who He is.

Not as a caricature, but as who He has revealed Himself to be in the Word.

A God who is present in our suffering.
A God who is good.
A God who is the Author of your story and mine.
A God who has promised to make all things new.

My prayer for you, is that you would experience joy in the middle, because you see God, rightly. That you would cling to His goodness and His promises, no matter how it looks or feels.

Humbly,
Courtney, a Mission Canada worker still trying to figure out how to have joy in the middle.