Joy...A kind of wanting.

     This third week of Advent we lit the candle symbolizing Joy.  I am not going to lie; this was difficult considering all that was not joyful in Newtown Connecticut.  However we lit the only pink candle on the Advent Wreath as we blessed the children of our church. We lit the candle in memory of the joy that was, thankful for the joy that is, and prayerful for the joy to come.

     C.S. Lewis, who knew his own grief after the death of his wife, said that "Joy is the serious business of Heaven."  He also said (condensed) "it is the that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than the satisfaction....it is not Happiness or Pleasure, and only holds the desire for more of it in common with them....it might also be compared to grief or unhappiness in its quality---that being an intense kind of want."

     Think of a child; remember yourself as a child, a week before, the night before their/your favorite holiday or birthday.  The anticipation is/was better than the actual event or all the gifts. 

     Joy is the anticipation of fullness, this fullness cannot be bought, and it cannot be wrapped.  This fullness comes from a place bigger than we are but when it settles in us we feel it, it is too big for us making our chests expand as if we cannot contain it. 

This joy is powerful.  In Nehemiah 8:10 --"The joy of the LORD makes you strong.” 

     So how can we speak of joy at a time like this?  We speak of it because we have a deep desire for something more. We pray for a fullness to be felt that will be different from the fullness of yesterday, but one that will be felt with time.