Party-animal god

And, here's the week's third and final piece on Joy for my advent reflections.
Party time!

Advent reflection 3 - A God of Joy

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink
but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
~ Romans 14:17

Of all the adjectives used to describe the kingdom of God, I’m rather surprised at the choice of Joy. Somehow my childhood images of angels playing harps on fluffy clouds, doesn’t really seem like Party Central. Wasn’t the joke that the party was always downstairs with the devil and all the good music?

Thankfully, the image of God as an old, boring, stern white man does not find any support in Scripture. In contrast, the God of the Israelites is a God who is full of Joy. We may even go as far to say that this God is a party animal God! It follows then that God’s reign/kingdom would be full of Joy.

What would be the overarching description that you would give you your experience of God’s reign? I hope that Joy is in there somewhere amongst the adjectives.

Let us reflect some more extent of this Joyfulness, and the celebratory God we serve:

In the Jewish Scriptures, where the notion of ‘the kingdom of God’ finds it’s roots, the Lord mandates 46 different festivals and parties for Israel in their year. That’s almost party a week!

In just the first 5 books (the Torah) of the Jewish Bible, God institutes 7 sacred festivals. What’s more, three were considered as ‘major feasts’: the Feast of Passover (Pesach), the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).

These are often called ‘pilgrim feasts’ because all adult males were required to travel to the sanctuary to take part (Deuteronomy 16:16). There’s no VIP list, or ‘by invite only’ in this Kingdom. Everyone is invited, even mandated, to come to the party.

What’s more, if 7 days of partying wasn’t enough, when the 7 day Tabernacles festival ended, there was one more day of partying to celebrate the fact they had just had a week long celebration! Phew! It was called the Last Great Day, the 8th, an extra day of assembly. No work was permitted on this day and the people once again gathered at the Tabernacle to join their Joyful God.

This advent, whether your waiting is sad, nostalgic, peaceful, or at ease, may it lead you closer to the Joy of the promise of advent, when we can once more party and sing:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing.