Week 3, Tuesday: Joy to the World

Read Luke 2:8-14
What makes you feel the most joyful? Reading a good book? Hanging out with friends? Being all by yourself? Chances are it may be different for each person in your family. So when the angel talked about a joy being for all the people, what did he mean? How could there be something that would make everyone happy when we're all so different?

For Eric Liddell, joy meant running. Eric was a missionary to China in the early 1900s who was also an Olympic athlete. He was known as the Flying Scotsman, and he loved to run -- head back, eyes closed, arms waving. In the movie Chariots of Fire, he told his sister, "I believe God made me for a purpose. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feal his pleasure."

Maybe that's the key to understanding the joy of Christmas. Maybe the only joy big enough for all of us is God's own joy, spilling down from heaven. Ephesians 1:9 tells us he made known his will to us for HIS pleasure. Hebrews 12:22 says Jesus came and died for us for HIS joy.

The news the angel brought was not just about a source of potential joy for us -- it was about joy that already existed -- God's deep joy in performing this act of love.