Rejoice!
Saturday December 19, 2020
Philippians 4:4-9
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Dear Friends,
Sometimes it’s hard to think about rejoicing and being glad when life seems to be crumbling around you. I would rather stay in bed with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s brownie ice cream while binge-watching Schitt’s Creek when things get too difficult and life becomes disappointing. How do you rejoice this Christmas while having to be alone and away from family and friends? How do you rejoice when so many are suffering from COVID-19? How do you rejoice when your kid gets that diagnosis, when you lost your job, when you can’t make rent, when the debt’s piled up like the lack of gifts under the tree?
Rejoicing comes from a shift in perspective when we fix our eyes, hearts, and minds on Jesus. Paul’s not saying that we’re meant to rejoice in our circumstances. He’s saying that we are to rejoice in Jesus because Jesus is so good. Friends, when you fix your eyes on Jesus and rejoice in Jesus first, your circumstances might not change, but your mindset will. The way you see and engage with your circumstances will change when you rejoice in Jesus.
When you start with rejoicing in your good, present, intimate friendship with Jesus and you end with thinking about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy, your perspective of your circumstances will shift. Maybe your circumstances won’t but your perspective will. No longer will you focus on guilt, shame, or bitterness about not being together for Christmas because your focus is elsewhere. No longer will you concentrate on despair, rage, anger, or hopelessness because you’re fixed on something else. It doesn’t mean you ignore the difficulty or pretend it will go away on it’s own, but the difficulty no longer determines your response. Peace that passes understanding, peace that transcends your circumstances and situations, peace that you can’t quite make sense of will protect you. The word for “peace” here is Shalom, which means wholeness. That means that when you feel like your world is breaking apart and shattering to pieces, you are still whole and this wholeness from Jesus protects your heart and mind.
In-between gratefully rejoicing in Jesus’s peace/wholeness and thinking about the good, there’s little room left for anxiety and worry to fester in your heart and infect your perspective. (Friends, I’m speaking towards non-clinical anxiety and worry. There are some brains where rejoicing in Jesus needs a little extra serotonin boost to get there. “Jesus loves me this I know, because he gave me Lexapro.”). I also want you to know that, even though Paul’s words may feel formulaic—just do it like this and then you’ll feel that—there is no formula to your relationship with Jesus. For some of you, rejoicing looks like praising God through singing. But for others rejoicing in Jesus might look like a walk in the woods, candles in a cathedral, paint on a canvas, bedtime stories to your kids, dancing until your lungs hurt. You’ve been created uniquely to rejoice uniquely.
As you wait with bated breath for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, may you rejoice in the good presence of Jesus who loves you so deeply, affirms you so rapidly, and rejoices in you wholeheartedly. May you discover how you’ve been created to rejoice. And may the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus this Advent.
With (love),
Bethany