{Prayer}
I want to ask you a question … is there a difference between joy and happiness? Are sure?
Let’s look at the definitions of these two words. Joy is “A feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” Happiness is “the State of being happy.” When you look in a Thesaurus … a synonym of joy is happiness and a synonym of happiness is joy. So are they the same? It sure sounds like their same, but are they really?
I’m going to say no they are not the same. And here’s why …
Let’s start with happiness. Happiness is found in things. Happiness is found in our toys, our cars, our jobs, our families, our health, our relationships, snow falling on a cold winter’s day, happiness is found in the sound of sleigh bells ringing, and it is definitely found in my coffee cup being full. Happiness is used to explain how I feel about something. It’s an emotional state of mind that revolves around being satisfied, around me being … happy. What happens if you take away my coffee or if my coffee cup is empty? I’m not happy anymore.
Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol is happy when? When he’s making money. He’s not happy about what it costs to run Christmas lights or the amount of time it takes to put them up.
He’s not happy about going out, picking out a Christmas tree, and cutting it down so you can put it up in your living room, get sap all over the place, to have pine needles all over and to have it die and become a fire hazard. He’s not happy unless he is working and making money.
In the Mickey Mouse version of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer is not happy if you have to put an extra log on the fire just so you can stay warm. To him, you should just be happy that the coals in the fireplace are still glowing.
Last week he got to see himself as a boy. This week as we look at this Christmas present, he gets a vision of what is going on around town on Christmas day. The story says, “All through the day, throughout the town as Ebenezer looked around, he saw the joy and peace and cheer that people share this time of year.” Notice he is starting to see things a little bit differently from his Bah Humbugish ways.
The moment that seems to change everything … he is taken to the home of a family. The father is one who works for Ebenezer Scrooge each day for little pay. The book says, “Together, this poor family was celebrating happily the birth of Christ, God’s only Son. They prayed, ‘God bless us, every one’”
Then, listen to this … “Then Tiny Tim, the smallest there, repeated this great Christmas prayer. And Ebenezer’s heart was moved that this meek child showed so much love.” You see, something was wrong with Tiny Tim. He was small for his age and he had to walk around with a crutch. In the midst this, in the midst of the hardship he had to face, him and his family were full of love, they were full of joy.
Did they have a lot of things? Probably not since Ebenezer didn’t pay him a whole lot. Are they happy? Yes, their happy. But there is more to it than just that and Ebenezer was starting to figure this out.
You see, Tiny Tim and his family were filled with joy, Christmas joy. Joy does doesn’t equal happiness. Say you take away everything that makes you happy, which makes me happy. Here, take my coffee. Am I happy since my coffee has been taken away? No. But can I still have joy in my heart? Yeah!
I can have joy in my heart because joy isn’t found in things … it’s found in a person. It’s found in Jesus.
As we heard in our reading from Philippians, joy is found in Jesus coming down from heaven, taking on the form of a slave, the form of a servant, and then willfully dying on the cross for you and me. Dying on a cross, that doesn’t sound very joyful does it? No.
It is joyful though because through Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead … your sins are forgiven and as a child of God, you are going to be given the gift of what someday? You will get to live with Jesus someday in the new world to come!
Ebenezer is starting to realize that joy isn’t found what he has. It’s found in who was born for us on that first Christmas.
This joy is what we get to celebrate each Christmas, especially this year with all the craziness which has been going on. Christmas isn’t about what I’m getting for Christmas, it’s about who I have already been given … it’s all about Jesus.
An old pastor from Nebraska once said … “If joy is in your heart … tell your face.” As Christians, we should be gladly expressing the wonderful Christmas joy to those around, just like Tiny Tim did! Amen.
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