Good News is Louder Than Fear

How loud is your joy?

It is Christmas Eve, and perhaps some of you have already been exchanging gifts or are preparing to tonight or tomorrow. Either way, all of us are in some sort of eager anticipation. There is nothing quite like the shriek of joy is there? Can ya’ll give me one?

This morning Adalyn was up at 5am ready to open presents. Her joy was just about to burst. What about when you watch someone finally open a present you have been waiting and waiting and waiting to give? You are carefully paying attention to their reaction, to watch their eyes widen and their mouth crack into a smile. And then the ooh, the aah, the gasp, the shreak, the jumping up and down even. Or maybe you are the one on the receiving end and suddenly you catch yourself in uncontainable, loud joy.

Joy is not made to be quiet and still, but is noisy, animated, and contagious.

And so even though we will end tonight’s service singing silent night as is our tradition, when we listen, we recall that the Christmas story is anything but. Think of all the noise. What sounds did you hear in Luke 2:1-20?

The bustling of people on the move and the noise of city streets. One after the other saying they don’t have room. Didn’t you hear? Footsteps upon footsteps. Mary groaning and trying to shift her weight on the donkey. Joseph talking to himself trying to figure out a backup plan, his voice growing more and more desperate. An innkeeper who is impatient and finally resolves to let Joseph and Mary stay in the guest area out where the animals are kept. Cold and dark, but not quiet. The animals didn’t just stop being animals and move out of the way for Mary. And then giving labor on hard, bare earth with no anesthetic in sight. And the baby crying out into the sounds of the busy night. Shepherds talking shop as they tend to their sheep. But then a whole chorus of angels, or the heavenly host, breaks through the sky in song, like one giant voice.

Joy is loud. Good news is loud….but is it louder than our fear?

We have spent the past few weeks talking about Advent coming in the midst of our fears. We have named them and considered how our fears might invite us to lean in and love more, to experience transformation. Left unexamined, they can fester and multiply. Before we know it, our fears have scooted over and taken the wheel with us left wondering how did we let it go this far?

Advent begins in the dark, begins in a world of fear. Fear of the Roman empire that heralded peace or Pax Romana as a military victory. Fear of a system that oppressed its people through taxation. Fear of persecution if you didn’t play along and act nice. Fear of trying to figure out how to be parents to this child? What was it going to mean? Fear of being pursued by imperial authorities and trying to seek safety. Fear of how the world would respond, would react to this news?

How loud has your fear been this year?

Sometimes the cycle of fear in our lives can take up so much space, can speak so loudly on repeat that it makes it hard for anything to break through the sound barrier of our minds. And yet, in the midst of loud fears, joy broke through. Loudly. Persistently. Proclaiming good news for all people.

Not just those who could afford it or who were friends with the right people or who had the right sort of look or came from the right kind of place and thought the same way as everyone else. Not just those that we want to extend the good news to while ignoring everyone else. Not the good news of the empire that is like the monkey’s paw of Christmas, sweet until it isn’t. Not the good news that comes with a hidden agenda, a subscription fee, or a “you owe me one.”

I don’t know what all your year has held or where your spirit finds itself tonight, but on Christmas Eve, we all gather together because we are drawn to this strangely wonderful story and how the good news of Christ enters in. Good news because it happens in the middle of the mess, the love of God saying “the love of God is for now, for you, for right where you are.” This is the wonder of the incarnation, God in the flesh here among us.

This good news is different.

This good news says “Glory to God! Peace on earth!” This good news refuses to be quieted and subdued. This good news reaches reverberates off the edge of the field and beyond the border with its message of joy. This good news allows itself to be carried by voices and feet and bodies that have long since been disbelieved, cast off, and unheard. This good news knows that there is a lot of fear and a lot of people who won’t believe its possible and many who will try to get in its way and drown it out but it comes anyway. It enters anyway.

What might it feel like for joy to be louder than your fear? What might it look like for us to join the chorus of angels, the eagerness of the shepherds? How does the incarnate Word of God, the good news, become wrapped up within us as well? Parker Palmer shares that “We long for words like love, truth, and justice to become flesh and dwell among us.” He says, “For those of us who celebrate Christmas, the best gift we can others — whatever their faith or philosophy may be — is a simple question asked with heartfelt intent: What good words wait to be born in us, and how can we love one another in ways that midwife their incarnation?” How can we love one another in ways that bring this good news, these good words, to life?

Last Wednesday we went caroling to Indywood and Azalea. This is by far one of my favorite activities each year. While at Indywood, we ended our time there by traveling down the hall to sing for an older resident who is bedbound. All 8 of us crowded around her room. Tricia began to play and we began to sing. In that small space, the sound bounced off the walls, amplifying us. We joked that we sounded a lot better in that small space, but I think there was more to it than that. The woman’s face was filled with joy and she began to sing along with us. Behind us the news was on the TV, undoubtedly telling us of all the things we should fear. But in that moment, the good news we carried became louder. Joy was louder. Hope was louder. Peace was louder. Love was louder. Emmanuel. Even there in that small room.

Where has good news pierced through your life this year? Has it been something new on the way, someone special in your life, a good report, help that arrived right when you needed it? Has it been a moment so special it glimmered and all you could do was soak it in? A moment where the “with-ness” of God became more real than all the “what-ifness” of your fears. You might say a moment where the presence of God becomes louder than the power of your fears.

Rev. Dr. Boyung Lee says “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace. . ."—this is not a whisper. It’s a chorus. Tonight, we are invited to do the same. Not because our fear is gone—but because good news still breaks in. Even when it’s quiet. Even when it’s messy. Even when it feels like the darkness will never end. This is the shape of God’s dream: news born in vulnerability, joy proclaimed by the overlooked, power shown not through force,but through flesh. So let us proclaim the good news loudly. Let us make space for joy that shakes the walls. Let us resist fear’s domination by bearing witness to light, to peace, to Christ among us. Because tonight, we remember: Fear may be loud, but love is louder. Violence may be strong, but hope is stronger. And the good news—God is here—” always has the last word.

So let us go forward tonight with the light of Christ born anew in our hearts, with the hope of the world fresh in our minds, and with loud shouts of joy echoing from our lips.

Repeat. Repeat. The sounding joy.