Good news of great joy is hard to come by, let alone news so joyous that it inspires spontaneous singing of the Hallelujah Chorus. We live in a jaded world, a world tainted by cynicism and skepticism in even the most beloved institutions--anyone here hungering for a trip to the old ballpark to watch the latest and greatest ballooned superstars and chemical wonders of the modern world? We live in a world where parents cheat to get their kids into the right preschool, for crying out loud! We live in a world where the assumption--the assumption, mind you--is that anyone running for public office is a megalomaniac and not to be trusted with anything, yet we elect them anyway. Seemingly, the clouds are always gathered on the horizon.

The truth is that much is unchanged since the time of Christ’s birth. Our texts this morning carry a common theme of joy, but they do so as loud protests against the state of the world. In each context, darkness was powerful, overwhelming, and infectious.

The world of Joseph and Mary was also jaded. The Roman Empire was at her peak, bringing stability, order, and peace to the Mediterranean Basin. There was a price, however. Rome brought order through power, and power, as we all know, corrupts by nature. Once power is achieved, it will be maintained at all costs. Rome was no different. Imagine Joseph and Mary as they traveled to Bethlehem. There would have been real fear as they encountered Roman cohorts along the way. A centurion in his chariot was formidable and cruel. Deals had to be brokered to ensure one’s survival and place in the pecking order. The Church was right there, corrupt in the effort to survive. Jesus would die at the hands of Rome, but only after the church handed him over in an act of self-preservation.

It was no better in the time of Revelation. John was in hiding when he had his vision. The Hallelujahs he heard were because God had finally done away with the corruption of the earth, the literal prostituting of all that was good and right in order to maintain worldly power. The new community of Christ had become a scapegoat, a group to blame for the ills of the world, a convenient means to maintain a state of denial about the true nature of things. One day, God would rectify the situation. One day.

Paul understood such thinking. His Philippian congregation was a real success story, but not for any reason you or I would recognize. They were broke, they were not growing in numbers, they struggled to keep practicing what little mission they could--in short, they would have been on any presbytery’s short list of churches likely to be closed. They feared for their existence. Persecution terrified church members. They met secretively to avoid notice. There was so little to feel good about that Paul seems almost ridiculous in his praise.

Yet in each case, joy was real; joy was actual; and joy was resounding. How does that work?

The Mitchell Report rocked every fan of Major League Baseball this week. We all knew that players would be named, but had no inkling who they might be. There at the top of the list was Roger Clemens, arguably the greatest pitcher of the last thirty years. No more. He is a fraud, a cheat, a wonder of chemistry, or so goes the cynical response, justified though it may be. Yet as I listened to the fallout on NPR the morning after the report hit the news, there was a theme of hope. Most fans said they would still be in the ballpark come Spring. They will still buy a hot dog and a drink and sit in the bleachers to boo the umpire and cheer the sluggers. The game is more important than the players. The game is always more important than the players.

That is true in life and in faith as much as anywhere.

Joseph and Mary made it to Bethlehem, although Bethlehem’s response to them was less than stellar. They found shelter and Mary gave birth to her son. The angel Gabriel had made astounding promises to both Mary and Joseph that came to fruition against all odds and without the world’s cooperation. Something greater was at work than any power held within the world. The angels burst forth in the night sky with cascades of joy. The audience wasn’t much--just a bunch of shepherds no one wanted to be with anyway--but they sang with all their might. Something was at work beyond all reason, something for even the likes of shepherds, the bottom rung of the social ladder.

John in his cave is filled with joy, the resounding joy of heaven itself. He hears the angels just as the shepherds did, for the same reason--something was afoot that would confound the world in its darkness and cynicism. Joy would fill the earth. Joy would fill the heavens. There was reason to see it through, no matter what the earthly circumstances proclaimed.

Paul hears no choirs, but he sees the glory of God revealed. It does not come through signs and wonders, but instead through the perseverance of a struggling church. They are afire with the Holy Spirit and they are overachieving in keeping the faith. Something beyond any wisdom of the world is at work within the church. They will stand. They will endure. They will rejoice.

In each case, something trumps the power of the world and its expectations, its great figures and potentates, its bench players and hangers on. Something proves itself more powerful than any of the human entities within them. Just as baseball will go on, so, too, will the reason for joy.

God is.

This is the root of all the joy. God is. God will see through whatever God wills, and in all of these scenarios, what God wills is that we be freed from doubt, fear, skepticism, and that we lose our jading to see the light of God in all things. Nothing will defeat that end. Nothing.

The Pope issued an encyclical recently and it is incredibly poignant for the season at hand. It is called “Saved by Hope,” and is a bible study on the power of hope that is accessible to all of us through Christ. It is a testament to the power of Christ over and against the power of the world that has seemingly gone crazy with warfare, greed, and despair. His main point is that hope is always present through the presence of God and that we can fire that hope within us as we practice the love we find revealed in Jesus Christ.

Look once more at our texts this morning--do you see them as a progression? They are. First comes the announcement of joy, then comes the heavenly response to this joy, and finally comes the church’s own declaration of joy based on the above. Or think of it this way--Christ is born, the earth is reconciled to God, and we are the messengers of that reconciliation.

Here is how we learn to practice the art of love that results in joy. Love seems such a simple thing, but anyone who has ever been in love knows that is patently untrue. Love is hard. I am reading Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing’s masterpiece The Golden Notebook at the moment. In it, her characters are desperate to find love and meaning through their lives, lived according to the standards of worldly sophistication and urbanity--the new freedom from all the Victorian codes and mores garnered in the postwar years following World Wars I and II. They all fail. They get lost and alienated and consumed by existential wastes. They have forgotten that love is never self-serving. They have forgotten the sacrifice that comes through true love, the giving of oneself completely to another.

In Christ, God gives himself to the world. In Christ, we learn the art of such love. In Christ, we find joy.

We are not important. God is. Discovering that keeps us in the game and sends us on our way, on our way rejoicing, as the carol sings.

This is good news.