Joy, and happiness for that matter, are notoriously difficult to put into words. As with any emotion, the things they invoke, the things they carry with them are extremely sensory and intuitive realities. But, a significant difference can be seen between these two, however difficult they are to define or pull apart. You might say joy and happiness are two sides of the same coin, you might say they are two peas in one pod, you might say one is the egg and the other is the yolk. None of these analogies quite hit it right on the head, however. And, for that matter, we can always press analogies and find that they don’t quite match the things we’re using them to represent. So, in that case, we’ll start with a contrast and maybe that’ll clear some things up.

Joy is not happiness. The difference is indeed real, however linked the two are. Happiness is situated in circumstance, in the circle you stand in, as were. The word “hap” is old English for chance, or luck. Hence a happ-y person was a luck-y person, a person prone to luck or good chance. Happiness, then is based on fortune, something falling out in your favor. It comes and it goes much like the wind. For some it’s a delightful breeze on a hot day, and for others it knocks a tree down onto their home. Thus, in contrast and in everyday terms, joy is not the sense of rush we get when our team does well, or we get good grades, or we settle on the house, or we’re two weeks into a relationship or we receive a tax refund we weren’t expecting. We often use it in hyperbole, which we shouldn’t, to denote extreme happiness, a happiness that seems to transcend a mood. We describe an extremely ecstatic episode/thing/person as bringing us "just so much joy." Of course this hyperbolic use of joy is only a joke, but it speaks to our attitude and understanding of the dynamic between happiness and joy. It seems as though we intuitively know the difference. Happiness, in a word, is a temporary sensation based on temporary realities.

By temporary I mean it in the most universal sense possible, as in the temporary versus the eternal. We feel happy when things happen which will only matter for a short time, that do not effect our existence. Our getting the great job fresh out of school, our getting some loans forgiven, winning a sweepstakes, or seeing a great friend after a long while; all of these things may make us feel happy, but they don’t have a long-term lasting effect on why we get up in the morning, why we’re kind, why we’re patient, etc. They have an effect on that, for sure, but only temporarily. Because when we are unhappy, we are unkind, impatient, and we dread the alarm clock. That is, without joy. Now then, of course now we have to discuss what joy is.

Joy is an enduring sense of enjoyment and pleasure internally in transcendent realities. Specifically, this is what it feels like to have hope. To know that, above the circumstances, above the difficulties, and above both the illegitimate and legitimate things which cause us to be unhappy we have a place of security, a clear conscience, a purpose, and a destiny of good that will never end.

But Advent is a season which holds out a special joy despite waiting and expectation. It very clearly demonstrates the beautiful paradox that the church finds itself in at this point in time. We wait metaphorically with the people of Israel for the Messiah of God, the Virgin-born Christ, knowing that he has already indeed come. But we also wait in reality for the second coming of the Messiah of God this time as conquering all-powerful King, so glorious that people will involuntarily bow down to Him and have nothing else to say but that “He is Lord.” Advent reminds us that God’s Kingdom, with the coming of Himself in Christ, has come and is yet to come, all at the same time. We wait, and waiting is never a happy sensation. Especially when we’re waiting for salvation, for finally being with God whom we’ve given our lives to without seeing Him, after following him and loving him, and being saved by Him from a hopeless eternity. Most especially when we’re surrounded by temptation without and beleaguered by failure and condemning voices within. Surrounded by hatred and lust and violence and blasphemy and unfairness and godlessness and disease and brokenness; the true christian is desperately uncomfortable in this place. They are desperately uncomfortable with their fluctuating amount of discomfort, their sin and their apathy, among everything else about this broken world.

Its because of this that John Macarthur once said that for the Christian, “everyday here is Halloween.” This is a scary place, but doubly so for the Christian who has acknowledged their indwelling sin and the constant work of Satan. Knowing that they are saved now in spirit, but that they will then be saved in body and spirit, being with God forever without sin, without temptation, without hurt, without the frailties and ineptitude of these imperfect bodies and this imperfect world; this is the joy of Advent, that we know that we are not the first people in the history of God’s plan to have to wait. We have the joy of what it is that is promised, eternity with God in worship of Him. We have the joy of assurance that these promised things are as settled and inevitable as the coming of Christ was before that fateful night in Bethlehem.

With Good News of Great Joy,