The Hopes and Fears of All the Years: Day 17

We are with Each Other

“The mere sense of living is joy enough.” — Emily Dickinson

Text: Luke 2:10

Fear has a way of shrinking our world. It forces us inward, convincing us that self-protection is wisdom and distance is safety. Fear isolates. It causes us to look at others with suspicion, and to see anything or anyone new or unknown to us as a threat to be mitigated.

And then joy breaks in.

The angel’s first word to trembling shepherds was not about a series of doctrines they must believe, but an announcement: good news of great joy.

Joy is not simply optimism or happiness. It is also not the denial of pain or the dismissal of suffering. Joy meets the difficulty of life head on with the conviction that the way things are is not the way they have to be. That kind of joy does something fear never can: it connects us. It brings us together and reminds that, if the world is going to get any better, it will require us to work together with God to make it so.

Fear isolates because it says, “You are on your own.”
Joy connects because it declares, “Not only is God with us, but we are also with each other.”.

Advent joy, then, is not fragile. It is resilient. When fear tells us to withdraw, joy invites us to engage.

As we wait during Advent, we don’t wait alone. We wait together, held by a joy that keeps insisting that all this is going somewhere good.

Reflection
How has fear led you toward isolation?
How has joy brought you closer toward connection?