Mega Joy
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It’s hard to get through the Christmas season without hearing the word “joy”. It’s all around.
“... repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy.”
Dollars to donuts, if you decorate your home for Christmas, you have something that says “Joy” somewhere, likely something made out of wood.
There’s something about “Joy” that goes right along with Christmas. You can’t read the Christmas accounts in Matthew 2 and Luke 2 without encountering the word “joy” at least a few times:
10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
There’s something special about the joy felt by those in the Biblical account. The words in the original language are the words: charan megalēn
It’s not just joy, it’s MEGA JOY. (say it like you’re introducing a monster truck or the trailer for a new Transformers movie)
The angel brought to the shepherds good news of mega joy.
The magi (wise men) rejoiced exceedingly with mega joy.
There’s something about the birth of Jesus that fills those who believe with joy—not just any joy, but MEGA JOY.
THE FEELING OF JOY
THE FEELING OF JOY
Joy, despite what many well-meaning people will tell you, is, in fact, a feeling. It’s a feeling. It’s an emotion.
Christian joy is a good feeling. By that, I mean it is not an idea. It is not a conviction. It’s a feeling, an emotion. The difference between an idea and an emotion or feeling is that you don’t have immediate control over your feelings or your emotions. You can’t snap your fingers and decide to feel something. Neither can you just decide to not feel something.
There’s that song that brings you to tears every time you hear it, not because you decided to feel, but because it just happens.
You try not to laugh at that movie, but you can’t help it; no matter how many times you’ve seen it, it still gets you (i.e. “Don’t throw me down, Clark!”).
Feelings are altogether different from ideas and convictions.
For example, say you are going camping. You wake up, and there is this gigantic silhouette of a bear outside your tent, a grizzly bear. He seems hungry. In that moment, you don’t say, “Now, let me think about this. There is a bear. Bears are big. Bears are dangerous. Conclusion: I should feel fear here, so I will now decide to be afraid.”
Emotions don’t work like that. Thinking works like that, but feeling doesn’t. Feeling just happens to you.
Joy is a feeling.
When the angel announces the good news about Jesus’ birth, he announces it as great joy [mega joy] for all the people.
This news is going to bring about the feeling of joy in all who put their faith in the Christ-child.
10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
I used to read verse 10 as good news of great joy—as if all this meant was that the news the angel brought was joyous news. And it is. But it’s more than that.
Great joy (Mega Joy) is what the people—all the people—will feel at the hearing and reception of this gospel announcement.
great joy that will be for all the people...
Joy is a feeling.
1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
After meeting with Herod, the Magi went on their way to find Jesus:
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
These Magi are a group of wise men specializing in astronomy, astrology, and natural science. They study the stars, and upon learning of and seeing the star, the follow it from the east.
By the time they find Jesus, he’s a child living with his parents in a house, no longer a baby in a manger. In fact, in the nativity scene we set up, the wise men figurines are off a ways (nativity here, wise men way over there) to make it clear that the wise men weren’t there the night Jesus was born and not for many nights afterward.
We don’t know when they arrived exactly; neither do we know how many Magi there were. There could have been two, or there could have been 20; we only know they had three gifts between them.
There’s a lot we don’t know about the Magi. What we do know is what they felt.
The Bible tell us:
10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
Or, in a more literal translation:
10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
They rejoiced exceedingly with mega joy.
They had followed this star to see the child to whom this star belonged (think about that!), and then the star stops. Their journey is over. They’ve found the One for whom they were searching. And, in an instant, they are overwhelmed with joy. They hopped off their camels, jumping up and down, hugging each other, shouting, “Yes! Yes! We’re here!” in whatever eastern language they spoke.
Overjoyed.
What do you think overjoyed looks like?
I think it looks like a kid on Christmas day, opening long-awaited presents that have been taunting them for weeks from their places under the tree.
I think it looks like a bride on her wedding day, walking down the aisle toward the man she loves, after a months-long engagement. I think it looks like a groom watching his soon-to-be wife walking toward him in sparkling white, struggling to keep the tears from welling-up.
I think overjoyed looks like a parent holding their baby or meeting their child for the first time, after years of waiting.
Overjoyed. Great joy, mega joy.
Joy is a feeling:
Biblical joy, as defined by the late, great Dallas Willard is:
“...not the mere sensation of pleasure—it is a pervasive, constant, and unending sense of well-being that flows from vision, peace, righteousness, and hope. True joy is robust—even including outright hilarity!”
There’s something about the birth of Jesus that fills those who believe with joy—not just any joy, but MEGA JOY; pervasive, constant, unending joy.
Joy is a feeling, but joy is not just inward. It has a cause...
THE CAUSE OF JOY
THE CAUSE OF JOY
A feeling doesn’t just happen to you. There’s a cause for each and every feeling you feel. And most of the time, it’s a proportionate feeling. You know, Sir Isaac Newton, the third law of motion, and all that (every action has an equal and opposite reaction).
Stub your toe, try not to say a bad word. Bear outside your tent while camping, cry and run. Brother picking on you, scream bloody murder.
There’s a reaction for almost every action. Every feeling has a cause.
In this case, the cause of great joy—mega joy—is the birth of a baby. Now, normally, the birth of a baby is joyful for a few (Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, siblings, family friends, church family).
But this birth, the birth of Jesus, is the cause of great joy, not just for a few select people, for all the people: for shepherds and wise men and everyone in between. The birth of Jesus is cause for great joy, for you and for me, if we have been given eyes to see and ears to hear.
Once we see, once we hear of this child come to save us, this child come to live among us, this child come to set us free, we should be filled with joy. Overwhelmed with joy. We should rejoice with great joy.
For the lowly shepherds, the announcement that this was good news for every kind of person, well…that might have been a first for them. Rather than being looked-over or left-out as they often were, they were included. They were privileged to be some of the very first to know what was going on.
The long-awaited Messiah had come. The answer to centuries, millennia of promises was here.
The Savior was born—not some ineffectual or incapable military hero promising farfetched salvation from Rome, but the One who would save the people from their sins, once and for all.
God had come to dwell with them. The Lord had taken on flesh and had taken up residency in the town of David. The baby they’d find in the Bethlehem manger was the God-Man, perfectly divine, 100% human.
That’s cause for joy—great joy, mega joy, joy unending, joy that would follow them back to the sheep pastures and be their constant and lifelong companion.
That’s cause for joy; and they’d never be the same. They were, upon hearing of and seeing the baby Jesus, filled with joy. And life for them would never be dark again.
There are numerous accounts of ancient astrologers interpreting astronomical signs as announcements of the birth of kings.
So these Magi, these wise men from the East had, based on their interpretation of the stars, determined that a king had been born. They were paying attention, they saw Jesus’ star when it rose, and they traveled all the way to Jerusalem and then on a little bit further to Bethlehem until they found the one who has been born king of the Jews.
Herod, known as ‘King Herod’, was threatened. He was troubled, disturbed (Matthew 2:3) by the news. The birth of Jesus was, for him, not the cause of joy, but the cause of terror. The true King had been born, and Herod knew he was about to be dethroned.
For the Magi, after their brief conversation with the wrong king, went on their way, made it to Bethlehem, and the star that led them there stopped on a dime and took its permanent place in the night sky.
The Magi had arrived. They were at the place where the child was. And they were, overjoyed, filled with great, mega joy.
They were about to meet the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Some will say these men didn’t know who Jesus was, they couldn’t grasp the fullness of what was happening.
To that, I reply, with a sophisticated “Pssh!”
They were overjoyed; they rejoiced exceedingly with [mega] joy, not because they finally got to stretch their legs and try some of the local Bethlehem cuisine. They were overjoyed because they had found the King of the Jews, they found the Messiah.
‘Twas not just the star that led them there; God, through His Holy Spirit, was tugging at them, pulling them, calling them to come and worship His one and only Son.
This is cause for joy, to be sure. To find a king who had been born, only a year or two old, the fulfillment of ancient prophecy:
17 “I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near.
A star will come out of Jacob;
a scepter will rise out of Israel.
He will crush the foreheads of Moab,
the skulls of all the people of Sheth.
To have followed a star, based on your best guess, your scientific hypothesis, only to find a child who would blow out of the water all expectations; a child who would give hope and peace; a child who was one with God Himself; a child who would save even these pagan men from the east.
Finding King Jesus = joy. Cause and effect.
Joy is a feeling, but joy is not just inward. It has a cause and finds expression—a disposition of the whole person.
THE EXPRESSION OF JOY
THE EXPRESSION OF JOY
The expression of joy depends a great deal upon the personality of the one expressing joy. It’s hard to be dogmatic on this; it’s impossible to demand that someone express joy in a certain way, in a specific kind of way; you can’t really do that.
Upon feeling joy, you might jump up and down. You might cry tears of joy. Outwardly, you might be entirely unfazed like any good Anglo-saxon.
“Yeah, I’m joyful. Can’t you tell?”
For the shepherds, their joy was expressed quite visibly.
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.
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.
The shepherds left their sheep in the fields, and ran to Bethlehem, ran to see the baby, shared their joy with Mary and Joseph and the rest of the people gathered around the manger, and then they went back to their fields praising and glorifying God for what they had just seen and heard (and touched and smelled).
They hurried off and found…the baby. Forget decorum, forget cultural norms. These men ran to find the baby, the source of their joy.
And after spending time with the newborn Messiah, the swaddled Savior, the diapered Lord, the shepherds head home to resume their shepherding. But their great joy overflowed in songs of praise, in glorifying God for what He had done.
Their great joy, their mega joy was expressed in going and sharing, in worship and wonder, in praising and glorifying.
The Magi expressed their joy in worship. Upon seeing the child, they bowed down and worshipped Him. They presented their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
These grown men, important men, intelligent men, upon meeting the child, do what? They take to the ground, bow before Him, and worship Him.
I’ve wondered what the earthly parents of toddler Jesus must have been thinking? No doubt they knew that Jesus was the Son of God. They wouldn’t have forgotten the night when the shepherds showed up and told them of the angelic choir’s serenade.
They knew Jesus was not just a child, but to see the group of Magi worship Him, to have wise men give to Him kingly treasures—it had to hit them all over again. This young child was the Savior of Israel, but His salvation wasn’t just for Israel; the salvation He would secure was for the whole world. All who believed in Jesus and trusted in Him...
Joy will not go unexpressed. It always finds an outlet. There’s something about the birth of Jesus…there’s something about the birth of Jesus that fills those who believe with joy—not just any joy, but MEGA JOY.
If you know me, you realize I’m not the most demonstrably joyful person. I’m fairly stoic, even. In college, after watching some movie, one of the guys on our floor decided we all needed to come up with mob names for ourselves.
The RA on the floor was given the name “The Godfather” and our discipleship group leader was called, “The Don”, for example. When they got around to me, they gave me the name “Stoneface Case”. My ability to keep a straight face was a bit of a trademark.
I probably don’t express emotion like a normal person, but then again I’m not normal, so it works out.
The expression of joy is something I’m working on. “If you’re happy and you know it” and all that. “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,” I do.
The joy I feel because Jesus was born in that cradle-bed on that holy night those many years ago keeps me going. It keeps me preaching. It keeps me sharing and telling others about Jesus.
The joy I feel expresses itself, not as often as it should, but it does affect who I am and the outlook I have on this life.
This year has had its sorrow, its share of sadness and heartache. There have been difficult moments, but there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, one thing that isn’t going away, one thing that remains: good news of great joy: our Savior has come.
“Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.”
