“A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham …” (Matthew 1:1)

Welcome!  It’s a new season and a new sermon series, Unspeakable Joy.  As we enter these weeks of preparation and anticipation leading up to Christmas, we want to explore what joy is, where it “comes from,” how to live in it.  A genealogy could be a good place to start.

We’re lately fascinated with our genealogies, especially in the genomic sense.  No more of those boring Biblical “begats”!  A quick cheek swab, a short wait, a reasonable fee, and ta-da: a lovely pie chart of your genome (“28% Nordic, 22% Eastern European, 14% Irish” and then perhaps some odd bits: “3% Pacific Islander, 1% Ashkenazi Jewish”) and a nice map of “where you’re from.”  And there’s also rising interest in more traditional family trees: old photos, records of marriages, births and deaths, newspaper clippings, facsimiles of immigration records from Ellis Island.

The most important book in human history – the New Testament – begins with a long list of names: a genealogy.  And it culminates in a name, one particular name: “Jesus, who is called Christ” (Matthew 1:16).  All those unfamiliar and hard-to-pronounce names that lead up to Jesus matter, because all the people attached to those names matter.  Their names, their lives matter to God; ours do as well.  

Where does joy come from?  What is its genealogy?  Does joy come from our usual frenetic busyness?  From repeated cycles of buying-disposing-buying, kicked into crazy gear at this time of year?  From making sure that we are “connected,” in the “right” ways,” to the “right” resources so that our lives will never be surprised or upended by Life?

Joy Unspeakable. I can pretty much always tell you why I’m happy: good health, career success, a blossoming romance, a pretty sunset, my team’s victory in the championship.  But joy has an unspeakable quality to it: you know you’re being touched by joy because of all the non-verbal and non-verbalize-able aspects: tears, a sense of timelessness, being outside of time, feeling “choked up,” feeling strangely filled and full, often despite circumstances. Jaime described it well in his introduction to this series: “ … joy is more than an emotion. It is greater than happiness, deeper than nostalgia, and more enduring than sentimentality. It is a profound sense of satisfaction and gladness that doesn't go away even in the hardest situations ... This belief that all things and all manner of things will be well traces its roots to the child born in a manger who would save the world.”

So in these advent weeks, we’ll explore joy’s genealogy.  To begin, a hint, a clue: all the people in Matthew 1 were necessary.  Jesus’s human genealogy was … messy, complicated, and providentially directed by God.  Joy is the fruit of a process, not a technique to master in five easy steps.  And perhaps it can become a part of our “spiritual genome,” an inheritance we might share in together and offer to those who will come after us.

How would you trace the tracks of joy within your own life, your own history?  No life is filled with joy all the time … but how could you build in some resting places during these busy weeks to attend to where and how joy has come and found you?