Joy That Finds Us

This Sunday we light the candle of Joy, which feels a little ironic because December doesn’t exactly slow down and wait for us to feel joyful. The pace picks up, the lists get longer, and somewhere between Amazon deliveries and school events, joy can feel like something reserved for people who remembered to rest back in October.

But here is what I’ve noticed. God’s joy still keeps sneaking up on me.

I’ve found it in the music this season. Attending my boys’ choir concerts, my son’s band concert, and the beauty of Noontime Noels here at the church has offered moments when a single note or lyric opens something in me that I didn’t even realize had gone quiet. It is not the polished, picture-perfect joy we are sold this time of year. It is something deeper. Something steadier. Something that whispers, “God is up to something… even if you can’t see it yet.”

That is the heart of Advent joy. It doesn’t require everything to be great or easy or tied up in a bow. It asks us to trust that God is already moving, already preparing, already arriving. Joy is not the reward at the end of the waiting. Joy is what happens when we remember that the waiting is not empty.

So I hope you will join us in worship as we light the candle of Joy. And together let’s choose to rest in this truth. God is doing something in us, around us, and through us. Even when the pace feels relentless, God’s peace gives us space to breathe.
 

With Gratitude,

Rev. Rodney Whitfield
Senior Pastor
Aldersgate UMC