I checked the tread on my truck tires recently. They definitely need replacing so I’ve been checking out all the different tires available. Many are now “all-season” meaning they give traction all year around and in all kinds of weather.
Thinking of seasons, we are into the Christmas season—a season notable for its emphasis on joy. This is a time when joy will be preached on, sung about, and otherwise proclaimed more than at any other time. And I suppose with good reason. The angel did declare to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10).
I can’t help but compare tires with joy. Some joy experienced at Christmas is seasonal&mdasgh;the kind that comes out with the ornaments and is put away with them when Christmas is over. Is our joy only related to Christmas because of all the pleasant things associated with it? Or is it “all-season” joy like the tires—good to run on all year?
As I consider my life and observe that of other believers, it seems that joy is not as prevalent as it should be. As Chuck says, “Some of us look like we’ve been baptized in lemon juice.” There is a chorus we used to sing: “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart” But if that is true, our faces often don’t show it.
What exactly do we mean when we talk about joy? I know the Bible says that Christian lives are to be characterized by joy but it never defines it anywhere.
In grappling with this I recalled something C.S. Lewis wrote. He had struggled to understand and define joy and intentionally looked for it. If anyone could have defined it a wordsmith like him certainly could have. His search led him to discover that joy was not the same as happiness or pleasure. And in the end he found it in the most unexpected place. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis writes, “No slightest hint was vouchsafed me that there ever had been or ever would be any connection between God and joy. If anything, it was the reverse. I had hoped that the heart of reality might be of such a kind that we can best symbolize it as a place; instead I found it to be a Person.”1
The Apostle Peter also understood this. Writing to persecuted Christians he said, “…though you have not seen him [Jesus], you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8). Those believers were not in happy or pleasant circumstances yet they were filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
The experience of Lewis and the persecuted Christians to whom Peter was writing suggest that happiness is from outside of us, caused by pleasant circumstances such as we may find at Christmas.
Joy, however, is different. It is not seasonal or circumstantial. It is internal and not dependent on externals. When I think of my Saviour who humbly came to this earth to be crucified to save me, a sinner, that is not a happy thought. But I am filled with joy—inexpressible and glorious.
As Lewis also discovered, joy is not an end in itself to seek after but a by-product of life with our God. True joy is a sign of God’s presence (Galatians 5:22). The Holy Spirit, who is given to us at salvation, is the source of all joy and the secret to our having all-season joy is this: seeking Him and experiencing His presence in whatever we are engaged in—work, play, even suffering.
As we move into this wintery Christmas season may I suggest you check the tread on your joy? If it comes out with the decorations and gets packed away when they do it is only seasonal joy. Seasonal joy is tied to Christmas presents. All-season joy is tied to God’s presence and will give us the traction we need to get through all the weather we’ll experience in life.
1 C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World) pp. 230, 231.
