Wait for Joy

This past Sunday, I concluded the Rector’s Forum with a quote from an Advent reflection by the Rev. Barbara Deane Price, published in Women’s Uncommon Prayers. Here’s a portion of what she wrote.

“Yes, the people of God wait. … But we, O most fortunate ones, wait for joy; wait for the wolf to accompany the lamb; wait, hearts filled with laughter; wait to bear witness to the light. And we do not wait in vain. By the very power of our expectation, by our very faith, our willingness to welcome, we assist in the annual birth of love, of hope, of innocence.”

This speaks to me of the heart of Advent, waiting for joy to come, the joy we receive from God through Christ. But then on Tuesday, I signed the parish burial register following a funeral that was held last week. “We’ve done a lot of funerals this year,” I said to Meegan, a member of the staff, as I noted that the deceased’s name and my signature filled the last empty line on the page.

This Advent not all hearts are “filled with laughter.” Not everyone can “bear witness to the light.” Every family member who survived those listed in the burial register for 2022 is living through their first holiday season without their loved one. That does not mean they won’t feel joy during this season. But it will be a joy wrapped in grief, a grief not limited to those who have lost a loved one this year. After all, grief isn’t confined to one season.

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” Andy Williams sings in the holiday classic. True for many who will enjoy parties, family gatherings, choral concerts and finding the perfect gift for a beloved friend.

But for some, this is not a wonderful time. It’s a hard time, a sad time. The empty chair at the holiday table. The Christmas tradition that only made sense when shared with the person who is no longer here. The other side of the bed cold for the lack of your beloved.

The wait for joy can be a very long wait. Too long a wait if the experience of joy is limited to the present moment. But what if the seed for joy is found not in the present but instead in our memory? In Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis writes, “All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still ‘about to be.’”

Joy reminds. Not necessarily of better days, though this may be the case. Joy reminds us that, whatever we’re feeling today, in the past we have been loved and blessed by another. We have laughed and celebrated. We have experienced gladness and delight. These memories of past joy can, perhaps, spark joy in the present and give us hope for renewed joy in the future.

“This Advent,” the Rev. Price writes, “let us wait well, in faith, in hope, and in sympathy with one another — for together, we wait for joy!”