"Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all the people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:10-11
It's true that in this Christmas season many people, even many Christians, do not experience the joy and happiness the angel declared was coming. Some are burdened by tragedy or circumstances beyond their control, but many do not know the joy simply because they have forgotten or never known how it comes.
In another declaration well known to all of us we hear about "unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." That phrase, "the pursuit of happiness," puzzled me for a long time. It could easily be understood as hedonistic, self-centered and focused on personal pleasure. Surely that isn't what Jefferson and his colleagues meant. But what did it mean? I came to understand it when I learned the educational and philosophical context in which it was written.
The Declaration of Independence was written and signed my men who had been highly influenced by the Scottish enlightenment. In fact, fully 1/3 of the signers were of Scottish or Ulster Scott extraction. They were all familiar with and had been influenced by the teachings of Francis Hutcheson of Glasgow who was known as the founding father of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Hutcheson believed that every one's ultimate goal in life is happiness, but for him this meant not the gratification of physical desires but making others happy. The highest form of happiness is making others happy. "That action is best," he said, "which procures the greatest happiness. Can you imagine what our country would be like today if everyone were trying to make others happy?
A recent scientific experiment at the University of Oregon and reported by the Register Guard supports this idea. A number of people were given money and the opportunity to give it away or to keep it. Their brains were monitored and it was discovered that voluntarily giving to help others produced a response in the part of the brain that registers pleasure.
Haven't you found it to be true that when you made someone else happy that it produced happiness in you also? Like seeing your child open a long desired gift, or like seeing a young person blossom as a result of your teaching. And doesn't it make you happy to see slides by a missionary of someone being baptised in Kenya, or children singing enthusiastically in a Ukrainian church camp, knowing you had a hand in that through your support? On the other hand, the more self centered, the more we try to make ourselves happy by hoarding or spending on ourselves, the more miserable we are.
Jimmy Durante's gravelly voice in Sleepless in Seattle said it well in song: "Make someone happy, make just one someone happy, and you will be happy too."
This helps us understand the puzzling statement about Jesus in Hebrews 12:2 which says, "... for the joy set before him he endured the cross ..." It seems strange to put joy and enduring the cross together in the same sentence but it is true that when Jesus went to the cross he was in "the pursuit of happiness" -- yours and mine. The happiness of forgiven sin, of cleansing and renewal. The happiness of reconciliation and hope. All of this he secured for us the cross. Thus, it was "for the joy set before him that he endured the cross." We experience again that joy promised by the angel even now as we join our Lord at the communion table.
