Sermon Tone Analysis

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:

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

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.

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.

After meeting with Herod, the Magi went on their way to find Jesus:

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:

Or, in a more literal translation:

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

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.