Rector's Blog: I'm Glad You Exist
It’s difficult for me to tell you to be joyful this season.
I feel like the Dad with his kids on vacation: “You guys are gonna have fun whether you like it or not!” When we’re honest, we know we cannot feel things just because we’re supposed to. And we definitely know that our moods cannot be dictated by liturgical seasons.
It’s Advent. The church and the world around us are in prep mode for Christmas. The expectation to feel specific things weighs on us. At Redeemer we are trying to carve out a space for us all to be able to experience comfort and joy. But even as I type this, I know we cannot manufacture comfort, nor can we guarantee joy.
What we can do, I hope, is create a context and framework for what real comfort and joy might look like in our lives today.
Last week I wrote about comfort in our shared life in the church – real comfort though, not just convenience or easy livin’. Real, honest comfort is a sense of peace that comes from our understanding of God’s presence in the world, of our belongingness to one another, and of the essential beauty and belovedness of creation. This is where we find our comfort – this is what abiding, dwelling, making our home in God feels like.
When we have this proper understanding of comfort, I believe we experience an outflowing of great joy.
But just like comfort is not about convenience or material ease, joy is not simply about having a good time or “being happy”. What, then, is joy?
So, there’s this theologian named Stanley Hauerwas. And he’s famous in church nerd circles for being tough minded. (Tough minded is a euphemism for brilliant and difficult.) He uses words that make me head for the dictionary. He articulates contrarian ideas that somehow end up making sense. He is one of the more challenging Christian thinkers of our time. And when asked what the purpose of the church is, he responds that we exist to embody the joy of being made part of the Body of Christ. We exist to embody joy. When pressed to define that joy, he lets up on big words and hard ideas:
Joy, Hauerwas says, is, “I’m glad you exist – that you exist means life is good. Joy names the sheer presence of God. Joy is when I discover the other exists in such a wonderful way that I almost lose my sense of self-fascination."
I want this description of joy tattooed on my heart.
I’m glad you exist. That you exist means life is good.
You exist so wonderfully that I forget myself for a minute.
God is present.
Our church can’t make you be happy. We can’t guarantee good times or manufacture specific feelings – and we don’t want to. But we can point to that kind of joy, and we can talk about it, and in Jesus’ name we can make room for that joy in our church this season.
Our team has put together these spaces throughout the church this Advent that are meant for relaxing and conversation. They are modeled after “Hygge” – in Danish, “the Art of Coziness.” Maybe creating cozy spaces doesn’t sound very churchy to you. I get it. But what if when you came to church, you found a space that gave you a chance to be glad someone else exists, to notice how wonderfully they exist, to forget yourself for a second, and in so doing to experience God?
This Advent know that the Gospel of Jesus gives you permission simply to be glad others exist, and the sheer presence of God invites you to lose yourself in fascination at the wonderful other. There is joy in seeing outside yourself, and there is great comfort in being fascinated instead of fascinating.
If you spend this season humbly, openly, and extravagantly marveling at the beauty of those around you, the comfort and joy of Jesus Incarnate will be yours.
