The Joy of a Babe

This past Sunday, we lit the Advent candle for JOY. Here is the reading:

“Isaiah 35:10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, And come to Zion with singing,

With everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (NKJV)

We light this candle as a symbol of Christ our Joy. May the joyful promise of your presence, O God, make us rejoice in our hope of salvation. O come, O come, Emmanuel.”

With “everlasting joy”...that is some kind of joy! It will never end! This prompted me to think about the most joyous occasions in my life. There are many, and each one lifted my spirit as high as I thought it could go, but then in October 2020, we found out that we are going to be grandparents in May 2021! Game changer for my spirit!! It CAN go higher than ever before!!! Many of you know what I mean! What JOY!

Take a look at this picture of the note card we received. We met John and Jess for dinner one night in the fall and greeted each other in the parking lot. Then John gave us a note card from Darcy and Huxley, our sweet granddogs! I couldn’t imagine what they were sending us a card for - we had not sent them anything recently, had we? As these thoughts were going through my mind, I opened the card, and Mike and I read it. I was like “what is this??? Baby West in May 2021???? Wait..what??!!” Mike and I had to read it twice to be sure of what we read. Oh, the joy which still fills my heart!

Joy means a state of happiness, prospect of possessing what one desires, and the expression or exhibition of such emotion. Some synonyms include elation, exhilaration, exultation, ecstasy, euphoria. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/joy)

I know they were the emotions that I was feeling!! There is so much joy surrounding a baby. Don’t our hearts just melt?

Do we feel that JOY thinking of the birth of Jesus? I began wondering about Mary, the mother of Jesus. What was she feeling? Nervous? Joyful? Wondering how to tell Joseph; how to tell her parents and Joseph's parents; what to tell her best friend and Joseph’s friends; how in the world to explain her mixture of emotions? We don’t really know the answers to these questions, but we do know that she rejoiced as seen in Luke 1:46-48. We do know that she humbly accepted the word of the Lord from Gabriel.

What about Joseph? Look at this picture. Can you just "hear" the thoughts going through his head as Mary tells him the news? Was it Joy? Was it unbelief that his betrothed was pregnant and not by him? I recently read this from “Devotions Daily - Joseph’s Heartbreak: God Speaks Into Sorrow”:

Joseph's Heartbreak

December 11, 2020

FaithGateway Devotionals

“...my heart aches for Joseph. I wonder what his dreams looked like before his life took such a hairpin turn. Had he dreamt of the love he would share with Mary or about the night he would make her his own? Had he imagined their children, their home, or the secrets they would whisper in the dark? Joseph was a real man with real dreams, and I would imagine that at this moment in his life, those long-held desires lay in ruins around his feet. Nothing was going the way he had imagined it would go.”

The angel of the Lord visited Joseph in a dream and explained what was happening. He then rose and took Mary as his wife. So yes, it all came about differently from what each of them had planned. But God used them to bring about JOY to the world in the form of Jesus.

Regardless of how these parents felt, they were assured that God was the author and planner of this; God made this decision to come to earth as a human, as a baby. What responsibility Mary and Joseph had on their shoulders!

But how was this baby received? With incredible JOY and thanksgiving to God!

Luke 2:15-20 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. (NIV)

There is just something about the birth of a baby which stirs and melts our hearts - such innocence, total dependence on others, and sweet responses to the adults’ funny faces and sounds! I think it’s called love - the love of Jesus implanted in us, in our spirits, in our minds, in our souls. How many times have you seen someone look at a baby for the first time and not smile? Doesn’t happen because of this thing called love.

Now think about the JOY of the birth of Jesus. All heaven rejoiced as well as those surrounding them at the manger and across the land! And the wonderful, ecstatic, elated feeling of JOY was present and will always be present for us who BELIEVE! This kind of JOY is everlasting because our God and His love are everlasting. So let’s celebrate this birth of a babe named Jesus who grew up to become the ultimate sacrifice for us. I think that this JOY sends our spirits as high as they can go - higher than ever before!!!

Merry Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by,

Rachel