What would you say has been the single most joy-filled event or experience in your lifetime? Things like wedding days and the birth of children often top the list. A life-changing travel experience or mission trip might also rank at or near the top. A championship victory after a perfect or nearly-flawless season could be a source of joy. Is there one joy-filled occasion that stands out for you more than all others?
As you think about whatever it is at the top of your list, does it still fill you with the same level of joy as it did when you originally experienced it? Probably not. Remembering such an occasion does not fill us the way experiencing it does. The worldly joys we experience tend to fade over time.
Christians experience an entirely different kind of joy. The Third Sunday in Advent has historically been referred to as Guadete Sunday, which is Latin for “rejoice.” It is the Sunday in Advent on which the pink candle, the joy candle, is lit. As the Church shifts her attention in this season of Advent from the anticipation of Christ’s Second Coming to its celebration of Christ’s First Coming, the theme of joy is certainly an appropriate one. Joy is ours because Jesus became ours at Christmas. Perfect joy is ours only when perfect Jesus is its source.
I recently came across a definition of joy from another pastor/author that continues to grow on me: “a happiness that isn’t based on happenings.” This understanding of joy allows us to experience it independent of circumstances or situations. It isn’t a conditional feeling or emotion that depends entirely on a specific outcome.
That sets joy and happiness apart. As Christians who know joy, we can be happy even when things don’t go our way. We can be happy even in disappointment, even in sorrow, yes, even in loss. Why? That’s what Isaiah 61 explains for us.
When it comes worldly joys, somewhere in the discussion we have to include experiences of being captivated by nature. Anyone who has ever endured a strenuous hike to view a waterfall knows how rewarding it can be to arrive at the majestic waterfall – it leaves us captivated. An evening with minimal light pollution will leave us captivated by the vast array of stars littered across the night sky. A sunrise or sunset may also leave us captivated by the colors it paints as it reflects on the clouds.
It isn’t just nature that captivates us with that kind of joy. When we have the opportunity to watch people at the top of their craft performing at the highest level, it is captivating. To witness a dancer of the highest caliber glide gracefully and effortlessly, a magician shocking onlookers with an inexplicable trick, a comedian crush a gut-busting set, a band put on a once-in-a-lifetime concert – these types of performances are glimpses of greatness that are so captivating that there is nothing that could distract us in that moment.
Captivated by Christ
When we have the opportunity to reflect on these words of Isaiah, realizing they are essentially the words of Jesus himself, how can it be anything but captivating? Talk about someone at the top of their craft performing at the highest level! There is no one greater at saving than the Savior, and Isaiah captivates us with rich images of how he would carry out his saving work.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion” (v1-3a).
There’s something for everyone. “Good news” for “the poor,” “bind[ing] up the brokenhearted,” “freedom for the captives,” “release from darkness,” and “comfort for all who mourn.”
To be poor is to be without something, to lack something, and the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ richly provides everything that is needed! Paul reflected this when he wrote about Jesus, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
To live in a world covered in sin’s fingerprints is to know heartbreak firsthand. Every one of us has been on the receiving end of sin’s crushing blow, victims of sexual abuse and assault, slanderous gossip, betrayal, and infidelity, to name a few. We have experienced trauma and great loss. We are brokenhearted, but it is for the brokenhearted that Jesus came, that he might bind up our wounded hearts!
To live in a world covered in sin’s fingerprints also acknowledges that far too many of those fingerprints are mine. We aren’t only on the receiving end of the heartbreak we just described; too often we are also the cause of it. By nature we can do nothing but sin. When outside of faith, people are helplessly enslaved to sin and have no choice but to sin – it’s all they can do. Apart from Jesus, we are captive, prisoners to sin and sin’s source, Satan. And for those captives, for those prisoners, Jesus Christ came to provide freedom and release!
To live in a world covered in sin’s fingerprints is to know mourning and grieving, for even when the cause of that mourning and grieving may not directly affect us at all, it still affects us. The internet and smart phones have partnered together to saturate our heads and hearts with more stories of sadness and tragedy from all over the world than any culture has ever before been exposed to. We see citizens of other countries harmed by their own government instead of protected by it, a flood of innocent lives cut short by senseless wars, the trafficking of women and children, those in our own community bending over another garbage can hoping to salvage something for their next meal, cancer diagnoses, tragic accidents – all of it is more than our heads and hearts were ever intended to process. But even as we sit in a pool of tears, Jesus Christ came to comfort and provide for us!
How can we be anything but captivated by Christ and the saving work he came to do? Talk about someone at the top of their craft performing at the highest level! There is no one greater at saving than the Savior!
Clothed with Christ
Not only are we captivated by Christ; Isaiah reminds us that we’re also clothed with Christ. “he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (v.10). Dressed in Christ, you’ve never looked better! Christ alone has your salvation and your righteousness covered, and by faith he now covers you with them.
Salvation is a term that is used to frequently that we can easily lose sight of the weight of its significance. Think of the police officer wearing his bulletproof vest. In a non-theological sense, that vest may very well be responsible for his salvation. It could stop a bullet that would otherwise end his life!
If I am wearing Christ’s salvation, then I have protection even greater than a bullet-proof vest. I have something that will protect and save me for eternity. Dressed with salvation, forgiveness is assured and my name is written in the Book of Life. I have his salvation, so nothing more is needed. I am saved. I am safe.
And his robe of righteousness that also covers me means that I measure up. I am good enough. I am right with God. We have a tendency to look back and wonder if we said the right thing, did the right thing, or acted in the right way. But if I am wearing Christ’s robe of righteousness, his “right-ness” means that every right thing that has ever been required for my salvation has already been carried out in Christ.
It’s difficult to imagine Isaiah’s imagery here without considering the place of baptism in the life of the Christian, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27). Paul explains that these clothes are draped upon the child of God in baptism. In baptism you were dressed with the garments of salvation and Christ’s robe of righteousness. Not only are you the best dressed, but you are also dressed completely with everything you need. I don’t need to keep shopping for another outfit to try to impress God. I don’t need to keep running back to my own closet to pretend I can find there an outfit that has fewer stains or might fool the Father with an appearance of minimal stain or blemish. I am clothed with Christ in baptism!
Now then, being captivated by Christ and clothed with Christ, what is our response? We rejoice, of course! Verse 10 is the believer’s joyful response at all of this joyful news. “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.” The word translated “delight” is actually the same word for “joy” repeated in the original, so as to amplify the joy. The believer is saying “I rejoiced with great joy” or “I joyfully rejoiced.” Then a different “joy” word is used in the second part, which could also be “exalt” or “celebrate.” The point is clear no matter how we translate it – so long as we have Jesus Christ, we have joy, and reason to rejoice!
Today, this week, next weekend, and throughout the season of Christmas and beyond, rejoice. Delight in the Lord.
How does one do that? I don’t just mean singing favorite Christmas hymns like Joy to the World (while that certainly can be included as a part of it!).
Delighting in and rejoicing in Jesus is not accidental. It is deliberate. It is intentional. It is planned. It is a priority. It is something we can and ought to do every day as we hit the pause button, whether in the morning or at any time of the day. Reflect and be captivated by Christ. Marvel that you are clothed with Christ (you could certainly use Isaiah 61:1-3 for reflection!). Let no other worries or anxieties rob you of rejoicing, for your joy is not a happiness based on happenings, but a joy in Jesus. A perfect joy from a perfect Savior.