Are you feeling the joy of Christmas?

Lieutenant Amy Bayliss-Fox encourages us to look for the new in the familiar story of God's love coming down.

‘Repeat the sounding joy. Repeat the sounding joy. Repeat, repeat the sounding joy…’ There’s a repetition to Christmas, a pattern that we can come to expect. On this date the tree goes up, on this date we start carolling, the corps Christmas calendar looks like XYZ… We can come to expect certain songs, certain Scripture readings, the appearance of various biblical characters within sermons. This repetition can reverberate feelings of comfort and nostalgia, stress and unease, busyness and rushing around, joy and peace. So much to consider.

In the spirit of repetition, a phrase you’ve probably heard a lot already is ‘the reason for the season’. In my home corps of Cannock, I remember there being something between a groan and a cheer whenever that phrase was uttered. A favourite carol of many is ‘Joy to the World!’, which involves a lot of repetition. It celebrates the ‘wonders of his love’ and reminds us to ‘repeat the sounding joy’ – but what is this joy we’re meant to be repeating? How are we meant to repeat it?

A warning when it comes to repetition. Matthew 6:7 reads: ‘When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again’ (New Living Translation). Just because we go through the repetitions of the Christmas period does not necessarily mean we have entered into the sounding joy that truly is the reason for the season.

We have to lean into the repetition of this season with our full hearts. Chris Tomlin took the song ‘Joy to the World!’ and added a chorus that talks about this sounding joy, an unspeakable joy that rises first from our souls, our inmost being when we are in relationship with Immanuel, God with us. Love that overflows and never lets us go. Love that reaches out. Love that wraps around. Love that stands with. Love that shows up.

Recognise these? These are the headings from the territory’s Advent theme this year, all under the banner of Love Came Down. Love so amazing, so divine, that we can’t help but talk about it time and time again!

Love and joy that mean whether it’s your first or 201st time singing ‘Away in a Manger’ you can’t help but feel warmth in your heart when picturing the Saviour of the world as a little baby in a manger.

Love and joy so real and tangible that, even when we hear another sermon about how ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’ (John 3:16), it can change our lives like it’s the first time we are hearing it, revolutionising what it means to be loved.

The challenge of repeating the sounding joy can be found in purposefully looking for the new in the familiar. So I wonder, are you going through the motions of Christmas traditions, thinking that if you just ride the wave maybe you’ll feel something? Among all the repetition and familiarity, is an unspeakable joy rising in your soul?

I invite you to lean into the repetitiveness of it all, so that you remember with all your heart, mind and soul that love came down at Christmas.

Joy, unspeakable joy 
An overflowing well 
No tongue can tell 
Joy, unspeakable joy 
Rises in my soul 
Never lets me go.