Skipping Christmas- Skipping the Misplaced Joy

I didn’t preach Sunday so I’m sure the joy was there!   Seriously though our choir did a great job.  Music is always a good experience for the third Sunday in Advent because that is the Sunday of Joy.  Christmas is about real joy and the sad truth is that many people still look for happiness but often look in the wrong place.  In our society and especially at Christmas we always think we will find something to make us happy and it is usually in the material end of things.  This Christmas we need to find real joy in the right place.  The real joy we need of course is in a relationship with God through Christ and a life lived as Christ taught us to live.  Real joy is found by giving and not receiving.  If we can ‘get it’ we will find true happiness.  This means that even when the external factors of our lives threaten us that we will still have ‘joy’ that is more than simple emotion but deep peace knowing that whatever happens we are in Christ.  This is how Paul could praise God despite shipwreck, beatings, prison, abuse, and eventually death.  He knew that nothing could separate him from the love of God and that death really had no sting.  So this week give thanks and seek the joy that is for the world and found only in God.

Blessings,
Derik