Love-Filled Joy
This December, members of the Juniper Formation Leadership Team are sharing daily reflections through the Daily Ripple app and Substack. Join us as we explore the Advent themes of hope, peace, love, and joy. This week’s reflections are written by Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher.
Leap for Joy
Luke 1: 44-45 - “For as soon as I heard the sound of your [Mary’s] greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by God.”
Have you ever been convicted by scripture?
I can’t remember the last time I “leaped for joy.” Joy feels distant in the depths of winter, in the weeks preceding the next administration, after the years of Covid, in the grief for loved ones who have died, all interwoven with the struggles of my own pregnancies and childbirths over the past three years. There is still joy interwoven into seasons of struggle and even laughter and dancing to “Baby Shark” with my three-year-old, but leaping for joy? Not so much. Too tired for that.
And then there is the blessing. Blessed is she who believed that God’s word was true. After starting a new church just before a pandemic, I know that God’s word is true, and also, I have to admit that I spend too much time uncertain about what the future holds. Again, there are moments where I fully believe that God’s Spirit is leading me and Juniper Formation UCC. And also, there are moments of doubt about my and our future.
Those moments of belief in God’s word fulfilled are what bring me the most joy in life and the most magic—when everything comes together in Spirit exceeding the limits of my imagination. I so wish I could live embodied in that belief all of the time.
Can you imagine what it would be like to leap for joy at God’s blessings, to truly believe that what God has spoken to us is true and that God’s word will be fulfilled? Consider living this way for the week. Practice living with love, joy, peace, and hope, fully embodied, and see what magic happens.
Your Soul Makes God Bigger
Luke 1:46-47 - “And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies God, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.’”
Your soul makes God bigger—your essence shows others who God is, makes God more present in their lives, and makes God real. Do you know people like that, people who embody God? Are you people like that?
People whose love and care extend beyond your expectations, humbling you because you’re not sure you would have thought to do the same for them. People who speak up for what is right, just, gracious, and peaceable when the world seems hell-bent on doing what is wrong, unjust, punitive, and violent?
In our society, it seems we are losing what it means to be a follower of Christ. It feels that people who embody God are few and far between, but they are here.
They write for the Daily Ripple. They are neighbors, friends, co-workers, and even churchgoers; strangers and immigrants; trans people, polyamorous families, and those demanding bodily autonomy. They speak out against an apathetic, profiteering, genocidal health insurance industry. They continue to say “Black Lives Matter” and “Me Too.” They are constituents seeking clemency for those on death row and veterans steering us away from war…
Find a way today to show people who God really is. Then spend time seeking out those whose soul makes God bigger and see how your spirits will rejoice and what you can cocreate together with God.
God's work, Our Work
Luke 1:51b-53 -
“God has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
God has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.”
Earlier this week we reflected on the blessing it is to believe that God’s word will be fulfilled, that God’s word is true. On Christmas day, here in the Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise for God, we hear words that so many of us long to see fulfilled.
Believe that it is true. Whether it happens the way you imagine it or with the creativity of the Holy Spirit, whether it is in your lifetime or your grandchildren’s, believe that God’s word here in Mary’s song is true.
There is no way to God or good life through callous pride, powerful thrones, or unshared riches.
God’s work, and therefore our work, is through realness, equity, shared power and resources, and celebrating and lifting one another up.
Trust that there is love-filled joy in a different way of being in this world. Trust that it is possible to cocreate new relationships, cultures, and systems, and then get to work.
Where in your life can you cocreate God’s word sung by Mary, mother of Jesus?
Shine Forth
Psalm 80: 1b-2 -
“You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.
Stir up your might,
and come save us!”
The voice of refugees seeking God’s salvation demand of God, “Shine forth”—send beams of light.
The emotion that I connect with beams of light is love-filled joy. It is the way we look at babies, how children receive parents and loved ones, when separated lovers are rejoined, when old friends meet, when we get the opportunity to show up for one another and witness someone else in all their glory, and even when loved ones are at the end of their life there can be a sense of joy in being present and connecting with them one last time to say our goodbyes.
Love-filled joy is also when refugees are welcomed into safety as neighbors and friends. Perhaps like when Mary and Joseph found a safe place for Mary to give birth while they fled to protect the life of their unborn son, and when they were received by shepherds and magi with hope, joy, and gifts that foretold the importance of Jesus’ life and way.
We are powerful in our love-filled joy. We have strength in our love-filled joy. We can be saved through God’s love-filled joy. We can save ourselves by embodying God’s love-filled joy, by loving and caring for one another.
As you consider God’s truth and way in the world that comes with the birth and life of Jesus, what are ways that you can embody God’s love-filled joy, stir up your might, and work together to save us from corruption, greed, facism, hate, and violence?
God's Face
Psalm 80:3 -
“Restore us, O God;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.”
Restoration is a tough word. I don’t trust that there is a former condition of humanity that we should return to. Idealizing the past ignores the plight of people marginalized by society and centers the goalpost on whiteness, affluence, patriarchy, gender binaries, and heterosexism. And yet, many of us when faced with difficult life seasons will idealize parts of our personal histories.
Theologically I don’t believe that there is an original state of being without sin, or that Eve had anything to do with it. Those are from the imaginations of people struggling with the realities of life—someone or some action must have caused all this pain and suffering.
So maybe the call is to be restored in our relationship to God. Inviting ourselves to be more present to God in our lives and world. Yes, that I believe would be restorative for us.
I also believe that I can be saved by God’s face sending beams of love-filled joy. And I believe that I see the face of God in other people every day.
As we prepare for the new year, what ways might you seek out the face of God in other people?
