The church still knows...joy

Image Credit: Pexels

We've forgotten how to experience joy.
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I don't mean happiness. We pursue that constantly. We optimize for it, curate it, post about it. But joy? Real, wild, uncontained joy? We've buried that somewhere along the way.

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Adults have learned to control everything, including our emotions. Joy has to be respectable. Appropriate. It has to look a certain way, fit within certain bounds. We can smile, we can be pleased, but we shouldn't be too much. Too loud. Too undignified. 

And we've taught our children the same thing. Sit still. Be quiet. Use your inside voice. Don't draw attention to yourself. Contain yourself. 

Somewhere along the way, we decided that growing up meant leaving behind the wild, embodied, unconscious joy we used to know. And now we can hardly remember what it felt like. 

But the Church still knows. 

I heard a story recently about a school concert. One of the students danced through most of the performance—jumping, spinning, completely lost in the music. After the concert, someone complained. The child's behavior was inappropriate, the said. Someone should have stopped it. 

But the teacher's heart broke for a different reason: because that's what joy looks like. 

Not controlled. Not respectable. Not worried about what anyone thinks. Just pure, embodied, unconscious delight. 

That child knew something the rest of us have forgotten. Joy doesn't sit still. It doesn't perform for approval. It moves. It spins. It breaks out. 

And we've learned to shut it down. 

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs" (Mark 10:14). And later, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).

The children know something we've forgotten. They haven't learned yet to be embarrassed by joy. They haven't been taught that growing up means quiet, controlled, respectable. 

Maybe they're not the ones who need to learn. Maybe they're the ones showing us the way back.

Easter joy has never been respectable. 

Mary Magdalene at the tomb, weeping one moment and then running the next to tell the disciples. The women fleeing with fear and great joy. An impossible combination that only makes sense when you've seen the impossible happen. Disciples hiding behind locked doors one moment, then bursting out into the streets the next.

This isn't controlled emotion. This isn't dignified celebration. Resurrection joy breaks out. It can't be contained. It doesn't care what it looks like. 

Easter morning should be unbridled, uncontained, ridiculous with delight. Because the news is ridiculous. Death is undone. The tomb is empty. Christ is risen.

That kind of news should make us want to dance. 

That's absurd news. Impossible news. Laugh-out-loud, spin-around, can't-contain-it news. 

Maybe joy isn't something we've matured beyond. Maybe it's something we've buried. 

And it is time to let it break out again. 

The Church still knows what joy looks like. We've seen it in children who haven't learned yet to be embarrassed. We've heard it in the Easter "alleluias" that burst out after forty days of silence. We've felt it in the moments when the good news becomes so real we can't help but move. 

Real joy spins. It jumps. It dances. It doesn't care what anyone thinks because it's caught up in something bigger than approval or respectability. 

Christ is risen. The tomb is empty. Death doesn't get the final word. 

Maybe the children are showing us the way back. Maybe it's time to let ourselves be ridiculous with joy again. 

The Church still knows this. And Easter keeps reminding us. 

Peace,
Travis Segar
Pastor for Care and Community