When Joy Feels Like Coming Home

Editor's note: Before we know it, the Christmas season will be upon us! Even as we enjoy the fall and spend time with the Lord praying through this season, let's look forward in joy to celebrating Advent! Enjoy this excerpt of Matthew West's (yes, the Matthew West we know and love for his awesome music!) new book Come Home for Christmas.

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We throw the word joy around all the time, but I think we need to take a moment to think about what it means when we sing about it in Christmas carols or even when we read about it in Scripture. We use joy for so many different things — “Opening that present brought me joy,” “The Cubs winning the World Series brought me joy,” or “Getting that raise brought me joy.” But the “joy” of getting a new iPhone can’t be the same joy we find in the Bible. That kind of joy is just a shallow emotion attached to a conditional situation that passes quickly, right? That’s not the “ joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart” that kids sing about at Vacation Bible School.

So, when we talk about joy during the Christmas season, when we light the candle of joy during Advent services, when we sing about it, what exactly are we talking about?

One of my favorite Christian authors, C. S. Lewis, wrote a famous book called Surprised by Joy, where he described a little about joy, saying that it “must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world.”1 Wow. That’s exactly why he is one of my favorite writers! So,

• joy is something more substantial than happiness. And when you have it, you wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I read recently that the word joy is referenced more than four hundred times in the Bible.2 I also did a little Bible study and looked up how the word is used when we find it in the New Testament. The Greek word for joy is chara, and it’s defined as gladness, cheerfulness, or, my favorite, calm delight. Bible scholars agree with C. S. Lewis that joy reflects a steadiness and depth not associated with a passing event. 

True joy isn’t dependent on our circumstances, which also means this joy the Bible speaks of isn’t something that can be taken away.

We may not always feel it in the moment or recognize it, but it is still there.

Joy takes center stage as we celebrate Advent in our faith communities. A lot of churches these days use Advent candles to mark the weeks leading up to Christmas. In the third week of the Advent celebration, there is a pink candle known as the “shepherd candle.” This candle is meant to represent the joy that comes through Jesus’ birth and the salvation He offers us. This third week of celebration focuses on Philippians 4:4–5, where the apostle Paul told his readers,

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.

Paul said joy is found in the truth that God is near us! Christmas is the story of God coming near us. So, it is Jesus’ birth that brings deep and lasting joy to the world. And when we focus our hearts on Him, that joy tends to spread like the flames of a candlelight Christmas service.

Just like with most of the spiritual truths of Christmas, we have to trade in all the trivial, the consumerist, and the worldly ideas about joy to embrace its eternal truth. We have to let go of pop-culture ideas about joy to get to that inner, immovable definition of the joy that only God can bring us.

Another thing we can probably all agree on about joy is that it seems to be kind of a rare commodity in today’s world. Think about how often you really find people who seem to be burning with joy. How many times do you miss it in church service — a place where joy should be breaking out everywhere? When was the last time you could say that you really were aware of joy in your own life? Or when was the last time you brought joy to someone else? The angel brought “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10 ESV), but when was the last time you really experienced that for yourself?

The reality for so many people is that Christmas is anything but a time of joy. So many things compete for our attention during this season — office parties, church functions, neighborhood parties, or even the stress of Christmas shopping can fill our calendars to the point of exhaustion. For some people, Christmas is just a season of too many conflicts and uncomfortable family get-togethers with weird uncles and strange family dynamics. There are so many obligations that can make us feel stretched thin emotionally, relationally, and even financially. It’s not like we need any more added noise out there in the world, but the hustle and bustle and material focus of the season can definitely work to darken our joy light if we have any burning at all. Remember, there is an Enemy who is intentionally working to steal our joy. He thieves by using discouragement, grief, and the temptation to believe that all hope is lost.

But God has given us a story of joy unlike anything the world has ever seen — if we will just turn the attention of our hearts toward the first Christmas.

1. C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1955), 18.
2. Bible Apps, s.v. “ joy (n.),” accessed April 8, 2024, https://bibleapps.com/j/joy.htm.

Excerpted with permission from Come Home for Christmas by Matthew West, copyright Matthew West.

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Your Turn 

Joy isn’t dependent upon our circumstances. Our joy in Christ Jesus can’t be taken away! As we begin to think about the coming Advent season, let’s set our hearts on the joy He came to bring! ~ Devotionals Daily