Good News of Great Joy

​Recently I read a book about various Christian disciplines, the different things people can do to help us grow spiritually[1]. The book included things you would expect, like prayer and meditation and worship. It included things that are good, but not really appropriate for the Christmas season, like fasting. I am definitely NOT fasting these days!! After this service, I look forward to a big meal followed by an enormous dessert, or maybe two desserts.
 
But it was the last of the spiritual disciplines in my book that really struck me, particularly in this Christmas season: celebration.
 
I’ve never thought of celebration as a spiritual discipline. I have just thought of celebration as what we do when things are good.
 
But, my book pointed out, celebration should be second nature for all Christian people. No matter what is happening, there is always something to celebrate.
 
We celebrate the goodness of God’s love in all of creation. We celebrate the good news that Christ loves us enough to become incarnate for us, to die and rise again for us, to remain with us always, even to the end of the age. We celebrate because the Holy Spirit swirls around us, empowering us to live as God’s people. We celebrate because we are moving, however fitfully and hesitantly, towards God’s kingdom, as individuals, as a species, as God’s entire creation.
 
Celebration is especially appropriate tonight, of course, when we celebrate the good news of great joy at the very beginning of the Christian story.
 
We just heard it. As our reading begins, there are the shepherds on another dreary night with nothing to do but watch sheep.
 
But this is no ordinary night. Suddenly angels show up and surround the shepherds with the glory of the Lord. The shepherds were understandably terrified, as I suspect any of us would be. But in fact it was a big party, with a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and inviting the shepherds, and by extension inviting us, to join the fun.
 
I imagine the shepherds watching in amazement as the angels whooped it up. I imagine the shepherds slowly letting go of their fear as they saw how much fun the angels were having. I imagine the shepherds getting caught up in all that angelic joy. I imagine the angels encouraging the shepherds to join the chorus, to sing out loud and strong, to dance in celebration of the good news of that night. I imagine the shepherds hesitantly giving it a shot, and soon entering fully into all the excitement of that holy night. I imagine a holy conga line!
 
That is celebration as spiritual practice.
 
It has been a long time since I have celebrated like that, since I have been so full of joy that I just had to dance. But, believe it or not, it has happened. And I’d like to think that even now, I would be filled with so much joy that I had to dance if I were surrounded by the angelic choir.
 
But that was just the beginning of the shepherds’ big night.
 
After dancing with the angels, the shepherds headed to Bethlehem for more celebration, more joy. But now a quieter joy, the joy of a family with a new baby.
 
It’s also been a long time since we had a baby in our family. Our baby is twenty-five years old! But I can say two things about having a new baby in the house. One is, there is a lot of joy. The other is, parents want that joy to be quiet, especially when the baby is asleep!!
 
So, I imagine the shepherds had a very different celebration with the holy family from what they had with the angels. Less singing and dancing, and more quiet adoration. But joy just as deep and real as anything they had ever experienced.
 
On that night, life was changed forever for the shepherds. Having experienced divine joy, how could they ever be the same?
 
But the change in the shepherds and in their lives was not always visible. At some point, the shepherds had to return to their flocks and resume the life they had always known. Shepherding was a hard life, much of it spent away from the people they loved.
 
The holy family faced even greater challenges going forward. Not long after that first Christmas, they had to flee to Egypt to escape Herod, the murderous “king of the Jews.”
 
The same is true for us. We come together tonight to celebrate. Like the shepherds, we gather with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in singing God’s praises. As we celebrate Eucharist in a few minutes, imagine the multitude of the heavenly host surrounding us with joy and love and glory.
 
Consider this my invitation to let loose this evening, to sing out.
 
As many of you know, I am not proud of my singing voice. But, thanks in large part to the Seaburys, I am learning to sing audibly. On this Christmas Eve, I am even singing with a hint of vigor. (But still with the microphone off!) I am not in tune, but that’s OK.
 
I invite any of you who may not think of yourselves as good singers to do the same. Tonight is a celebration. Even the worst singers should let it out.
 
Hopefully we will all have a little time this week for quieter celebrations, too. Times when we can be still and know the presence of Christ with us.
 
And, of course, there will be times, including perhaps times this week, when we don’t feel much like celebrating. At some point the Christmas high will pass, and life will return to normal, and at least some of the time I don’t wake up with a song on my lips and joy in my heart.
 
But those shepherds were changed by that night of joy. The Holy Family was changed by that night of joy. And we, too, are changed by the joy we experience, whatever form it takes.
 
So enjoy this holy night to the fullest. And hold onto that joy. Practice celebration as a spiritual discipline.
 
So much of our culture and our politics is based on fear. But Jesus invites us to celebrate good news with great joy no matter what else is happening in the world. And the gates of Hell cannot prevail against that kind of joy.
 
Thanks be to God. In Christ’s name. Amen. Alleluia!


[1] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, 1978, 1988, 1998