My big brother Chris is 47 years old. His best friend Fritz died of cancer when they were both 43. When our family moved to Minnesota, Chris and Fritz met in school, and they stayed friends through high school, college, and beyond. They played basketball in high school together, and they wrote a sports column for our school newspaper with one other friend each week entitled “The Blonde Bombers.” Fritz hung out at our house a lot, and by the time he and Chris were in senior high, my junior high friends and I started to develop crushes on their group of friends; I, of course, developed a crush on Fritz, who was tall, blonde, and blue-eyed. Unfortunately, the crush was never mutual. I was too much like a “little sister.”
Though he was over six feet tall, everyone in our small town called Fritz “little Fritz” because his dad was “big Fritz,” the large-bellied owner of the German bakery in town. My mom was always glad to see Fritz at our house at night because he would bring some of the day’s leftover bakery goods, all of which we readily consumed. Fritz’s mom was a dear soul and still spoke like the true German she was.
When Fritz was first diagnosed with cancer a number of years ago, my brother kept us all connected with him through weekly and sometimes daily e-mails. He sent updates of Fritz’s treatment, from the first radiation to the last experimental chemotherapy, and then to his worsening physical condition at home. But there was a wonderful side to these e-mails. Chris told of the strong faith in God and deep love for each other Fritz and his wife, Lynn, had; of what I would call Fritz’s deep joy in life. It sounds odd, of course, to speak of joy in the midst of the situation. But joy it is what I heard through these e-mails, even joy amid pain, suffering, sadness, and questions.
One of the lectionary texts for the Third Sunday in Advent this year is Psalm 126. The psalm speaks of joy as one characteristic of the life of faith, of that “long obedience in the same direction”[1] in which we believers find ourselves. The pilgrims in the psalm are remembering the joy of the restoration of Jerusalem and its temple, and they are looking forward to the joy when all of God’s people will be restored. Words for joy and/or laughter occur five times in this short psalm.
Joy as a characteristic of the Christian life is spoken of in many places in the New Testament, especially in Paul’s writings. Paul writes in Galatians that joy is one of the fruits of the spirit. He writes in Philippians, Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. And he writes in Romans that joy exists alongside suffering.
This kind of joy is not a feeling, and it is also not something that we are to force ourselves into. Eugene Peterson explains, “Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence. It is not what we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking the way of faith and obedience.”
Peterson goes on to say that we try to find joy in other places such as entertainment, pleasure, and gluttony. He notes, however, that joy “cannot be commanded, purchased or arranged.” The only thing we can do to get it is this: “We can decide to live in response to the abundance of God and not under the dictatorship of our own poor needs. We can decide to live in the environment of the living God and not our own dying selves. We can decide to center ourselves in the God who generously gives and not in our own egos that greedily grab. One of the certain consequences of such a life is joy, the kind expressed Psalm 126.”
I take one of my weeks of study leave each year to spend time in Princeton, New Jersey, with a group of colleagues through the Foundation for Reformed Theology, a foundation begun years ago by Dr. John Leith. My colleagues and I spend time reading, studying, and discussing classic works of Reformed Theology on various topics each year, and we are also privileged to spend some time with several professors from the university and seminary, and fellows from the Center of Theological Inquiry.
Our group of ministers is one of serious theologians who work hard and see pain and suffering every day as pastors, but we are also a group of ministers who have deep joy in the midst of all the worldly “stuff” as well as the intellectual and academic “stuff.” We are persons of faith who know this consequence of Christianity, and I rarely laugh as much during the year as I do the week I spend with this group. Two quotes express this well. Phyllis McGinley has said, “I have read that during the process of canonization, the Catholic Church demands proof of joy in the candidate, and although I have not been able to track down chapter and verse, I like the suggestion that dourness is not a sacred attribute.” Karl Barth said, “The theologian who labors without joy is not a theologian at all.”
During this time of Advent, I think it is especially appropriate that we remember what true joy is for Christians lest we find ourselves in the depression that any pastor can tell you we see in more prevalently in this “happy” season. True joy comes not in the entertainment of the season, the material possessions we gain as presents, or the enjoyment of food and drink that can become gluttony. True joy comes in the knowledge that at Christmas God sent his Son to earth to live, die, and rise again for us — sinners all in need of salvation. That is how God’s hand has moved in our lives. True joy comes, too, in the moments along the life of Christian faith, that “long obedience in the same direction” when we can, like the pilgrims in Psalm 126, see God’s hand in our own lives. Perhaps during Advent we can seek to pay attention to and for these moments.
Fritz’s wife, Lynn, tells the story of the day she just had to get out of the house for a short walk and some fresh air, leaving Fritz alone in the house. As she left, she prayed that God would send an angel to watch over Fritz while she was gone. During her walk, my brother stopped by to check on Fritz, letting himself in with the key he had after no one answered his knock. He went to Fritz’s room and simply sat with him as he slept. Lynn soon returned and, upon seeing Chris, exclaimed, “Wow, God did send the angel I prayed for!”
I have to say, I’ve never really thought of my big brother as an angel, but what a great moment! That is the joy of the Christian life, that beyond what we see and know here on earth, there works a loving and caring God, a loving and caring God that saves us and empowers us to live for him in this world, and promises us a life to come in the next. Praise be to God for the joy He gives us, at Christmas and every day!
CATHY NORTHRUP is pastor of First Church, Wichita, Kansas
[1] This phrase is coined by Eugene Peterson in his book on the Psalms of Ascent, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Quotes throughout this article are from this book.
