Is Joy More than Happiness?

 I have been experiencing a lot of joy this past week.  That experience is not of joy – rather, it was about joy. I have had more than a few encounters with people writing about joy.

Joy is something I have thought about and pondered in my life.  I must confess that I have had a difficult time really getting a handle on what an experience of joy actually is.  There is lots of theory and exposition about joy but if asked I would have trouble describing the direct experience of joy. I am quite able to know when I am happy but what is joy when it is experienced?

Checking out the definition of joy on-line was not very helpful.  The first source I came across defined joy in terms of happiness - simply “great happiness.”  Another was a bit more detailed, “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation.”  So, can it be that joy is just an exaggerated experience of happiness or is there a difference between joy and happiness? 

Here are excerpts of some of the expositions regarding joy that came my way this week.

Dr. Barbara Holmes’ (1943–2024) makes a direct distinction between happiness and joy:

Make no mistake about it, there’s a real difference between happiness and joy. The sources of happiness are very fleeting. Buy something new and see how fleeting it is. That new car, that new house, they lose their luster in a mere few weeks. True joy is foundational. It’s a basis of God’s love for us, sealed with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Could there be any firmer foundation? 

 

Mystic and theologian Howard Thurman (1899–1981) writes of faith as the most secure foundation for joy.  However, he does seem to conflate joy with happiness but gives us an expanded idea of joy:  

There are some who are dependent upon the mood of others for their happiness…. There are some whose joy is dependent upon circumstances…. There is a strange quality of awe in their joy, that is but a reflection of the deep calm water of the spirit out of which it comes. It is primarily a discovery of the soul, when God makes known [God’s] presence, where there are no words, no outward song, only the Divine Movement. This is the joy that the world cannot give. This is the joy that keeps watch against all the emissaries of sadness of mind and weariness of soul. This is the joy that comforts and is the companion, as we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death. 

 Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis also sees a relationship between joy and happiness:

Joy is that feeling of well-being, pleasure, and happiness that accompanies us as we move through life. It alters the way we see the world, its people, and ourselves. Joy tints our perspective with optimism and the confidence that we will go through the hard things, and though we might be bruised or battered, we’ll come out on the other side. Joy is the wellspring of resistance, the water of life. Now, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and smile from the inside out. There, there it is. Can you feel it? That’s joy!  

Considering all this, it seems to me that happiness is dependent on externalities.  You are happy if life brings you things that give you happiness.  However, joy seems to be something that comes from your inner being – from a deep source that is ironically from both the outside and inside. 

When thinking about joy this past week, I was able to identify an experience of joy when attending a funeral of someone I didn’t know personally – the mother of a colleague.  The funeral service ended with the choir singing the In Paradisum from Faure’s Requiem.  The music was external, but the experience of joy came from somewhere internal.  It was not happiness - it was joy.   I realized that I had experienced that many times before but didn’t recognize it s joy.  May you be blessed with joy on your journey.

Sermon December 13, 2015 Advent 3

Today we light the Advent candle for Joy.  To me, Joy is a bit of an enigma.  When I think about it I am not sure what it actually is.  It is different from happiness but how is it different?  I did what I often do now when I have a question about meaning—I turned to that source of all knowledge—Google.  I found a website with a great number of images of joy. 

There were many different images—many different ideas and depictions of joy.  There were people jumping—this would be jumping for joy as the saying goes.  There were others who were in nature smelling the flowers; embracing nature and sunshine; there were a number of people with big smiles on their faces including one of a little baby (I especially like that one), the iconic one of Charlie Brown and Snoopy dancing their dance of joy; there were also phases such as choose joy, find joy on your journey, joy is the best makeup, awakening joy, there were even a couple of religious ones such as ‘joy comes from trusting God’, and ‘joy to the world the Lord is come’.  There were also a few surprizing ones such as one with a young woman pointing a very big gun (It’s not clear what she was aiming at) and a couple with very scantily clothed buxom young women. 

One particularly interesting one pictured a man jumping up exuberantly with the question “happiness or joy?”  What can we make of all this joy or at least these depictions of joy?  There seems to be a common thread running through many of the images.  Many were smiling with great big smiles; many more were jumping with outstretch arms; many were embracing nature exuberantly.  I’m not sure about the young scantily clothed women—perhaps they were all named Joy.  However, I think the common thread running through many, if not most, of the images was a sense of losing oneself, of reacting without constrain, of embracing life to the fullest.  There was also an underlying theme in a few of them that joy was a choice i.e. chose joy. 

It is perhaps not surprizing in today’s culture that there were so few that had a religious connecting or implication.  Here we are celebrating the anticipation of joy that was and will be born again on Christmas morning:

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,

This is the wonderful news that is proclaimed by the angels to the shepherds.  Why then is there so little association of Christianity with joy?  Shouldn’t Christians be living out the joy that was experienced with the sight of that small beautiful baby in the stable in Bethlehem?  Shouldn’t we be embracing the knowledge that Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God was born to us and walked among us and brought us salvation and embracing life to the fullest, joyfully? Unfortunately many Christians don’t seem to have gotten that message and the implications of that message.  Many Christians act as if there was no good news.  I guess they don’t understand what “Gospel” means.  Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ among us and with us.  As that one image said, “joy comes from trusting God.”   During the rest of Advent I invite you to embrace life as fully as possible.  I invite you to reflect on the joy of Jesus Christ in your life and respond in some small or some big ways.  Perhaps it is helping out the refugees we are sponsoring.  Perhaps it is serving at a community dinner at St. Paul’s.  Perhaps it is even wishing people a Merry Christmas and smiling at stranger.  Or perhaps if Christmas is not a joyful time for you because of its association with sad events and memories or loss, I invite you to participate with the Blue Christmas service at the U. C. in Grand Bend on next Sunday at 4:00 and know the comfort that Jesus can bring to people.  That too is an aspect of joy—the knowledge that Jesus Christ is with us in our sorrow as well as our joy.  We have tidings of comfort and joy.  That too is a part of the wonders of his love. 

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,

Amen