BibleProject - Joy: Responding to God’s Goodness

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

Advent E3 — In the third week of Advent, we’re reflecting on joy. Joy’s not only a feeling based on circumstances but a rich biblical theme expressed in song, celebration, and even shouts of delight in all seasons of life. In the Hebrew Bible, words for joy appear most often in Psalms and describe communal feasts, temple offerings, and weddings. In these moments, joy is about remembering God’s goodness in the past and anticipating his future rescue. The New Testament continues this story, with Luke and Acts in particular overflowing with joy at the arrival of the Messiah, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the resurrection of Jesus. In this episode, Jon and Tim find the theme of joy everywhere in Scripture, even before God’s work is ultimately finished.FULL SHOW NOTESFor chapter-by-chapter notes including summaries, referenced Scriptures, biblical words, and reflection questions, check out the full show notes for this episode.CHAPTERSThe Hebrew Words for Joy (0:00–15:24)Joy in Psalms, Songs, and Processions (15:24–24:55)New Testament Joy in Jesus and the Spirit (24:55–36:59)Reflections on Joy With Alena (36:59-41:21)OFFICIAL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTView this episode’s official transcript.REFERENCED RESOURCESChara / Joy: Though not referenced directly in the episode, this 2017 video explores one of the biblical words for joy, chara.Check out Tim’s extensive collection of recommended books here.SHOW MUSIC“I'll Be Warm This Christmas” by Lofi Sunday & TBabz“Joy” by Lofi Sunday & CRFT“Snowflakes” by AvesBibleProject theme song by TENTS SHOW CREDITSProduction of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer, and Cooper Peltz, managing producer. Tyler Bailey is our supervising engineer, who also edited today’s episode and provided the sound design and mix. JB Witty does our show notes, and Hannah Woo provides the annotations for our app. Our host and creative director is Jon Collins, and our lead scholar is Tim Mackie. Special thanks to our guest Alena.Powered and distributed by Simplecast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, Tim. Hello, John. Hi. We are working through the Advent words. I've really been enjoying going through these words. I'm learning a lot. It's been really fun. So we went through hope.

And then we looked at peace. That was the first two. First two. And now we're going to look at joy in this conversation. And then we'll look at love. and the last one. Yes, hope, peace, joy, and love. So again, going back over a millennia and a half, even earlier,

different Christian church traditions have been using the four weeks leading up to Christmas. We're at this period of waiting for the advent of the Messiah. It's a ritual recreation of the period of waiting for God to send the Messiah. Messiah. And the coming of Messiah is what the word Advent means coming. It's the same dynamic as what Passover became in Jewish tradition. It's a way to recreate for your own family and friends, the experience of going out of slavery in Egypt and making it your own experience, making that story and making it your own. And that's what we're doing here. Taking the arrival of the king of the new human making that not just something that happened in the past but reliving it in our own way yeah yeah

taking the the posture of like simeon or anna you know just faithful devout Israelites who just nerd out on the hebrew scriptures waiting for the redemption of god's people and the coming of the messiah and they waited their whole lives you know and simian got the grace as he says now I can die in peace. Because I've seen. Yeah, because I've seen the Lord's anointed one. So that period of waiting is what this is all about. And doing it every year then is about cultivating the virtue, patience, trusting in God's slow work in history and in our lives.

And cultivating hope, which is about waiting as we discovered, cultivating peace, which is also about making something full, not just the absence of conflict, but about the fulfillment. of a purpose, of a person or a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the tension of waiting, the anticipation of something being filled full.

Yeah, yeah. Yes. And then this third conversation is about the word joy. That, as we're going to see, is also very much about anticipation. Joy, yeah. Let's talk about joy. First of all, I just want to acknowledge that joy is an English word that I use. pretty much only when I am talking to the couple of people I know in my life named Joy.

I know two joys. Yeah, it's a good name. Uh-huh. I don't use the word joy. If I am going to say that idea describing myself, I would just say I'm happy. Yeah. Okay, but if you're like having a day where you feel especially happy, exuberantly happy. You want to like ramp it up.

What would you say about that day, or about yourself, the inner feelings? I'd say I just felt so good. I just felt happy. I felt grateful. I wouldn't use the word joy. I wouldn't say, it's just so full of joy. Yeah. That sounds religious to me.

Yeah. Especially the verb, rejoice. To me, that's full-on Bible speak. I've never told someone to rejoice. Yeah, totally. We would use the words celebrate. Yeah. Like, here, it's my birthday.

having a birthday party, come rejoice with me. You'd never say that. But you would say come celebrate with me. Yeah, I'm going to celebrate the fact that I'm this many years old. Come on. Come on. Let's have a party. Party, celebrate, happy. These are our normal words. In the Hebrew Bible is actually like half a dozen words to describe, well, we're going to find out. Four that get used the most. And then there's some other kind of rare. Four main Hebrew words that get translated Joy. Holy different roots. Yes, and each one of them gets translated. In fact, I'm just going to show you a bunch of examples about how they're used in all these different passages, and it's hard to tell them apart. So here's the four words, and there won't be a quiz. But there are little nuances of difference here. So the first one is from the root Samayach, and then there's a noun simcha. And it's probably the most general word, it's the most common one. It's used like over a hundred times, like, just to to be happy or to express your happiness. So you can make it a causative verb.

You can make someone happy. Or you can just be in the state of Samayakh. And then if you want to say it as a noun, you would say Simcha. Simcha was the name of the woman that I rented our apartment from. In Jerusalem? In Jerusalem? Her name just means happiness. Yeah, joy.

Yeah, happy. Yeah, totally. Okay. Yes, the Hebrew equivalent of someone naming their daughter, Joy. Okay, so that's that one. Then there's Giel. Giel. And if you turn it into a noun, there's gila.

Okay. And as we're going to see, it's usually just translated also, rejoice or joy. Sameach is often used to describe someone's feeling or their experience. Okay. We might say emotion. gill is like a bit more of an outward demonstration of it okay it's more about the action of it yeah totally so it might be like you know the I don't know jazz hands

kind of thing like you're demonstrating is that how you demonstrate your joy no never never that's a good point how do you show that you're happy I think there's more movement in your body yeah carefreness maybe maybe and how you talk what you talk the tone of your voice. Yeah. Make it kind of loud and kind of excitable.

There you go. It seems to be, we'll look at examples, but that seems to be the vibe of Giel. There's a specific word to just describe expressing your joy

by being loud. Oh. That's Rannin. Rannin is the verb. And then Rennina or Rina, which just means shout of joy. Okay.

Joyful shout. Chearing. Chearing. Yeah. Like, yay. Yeah. Hooray. What's hooray?

What is that? Hooray. Hip, hip. Hooray. But that's a word. Hooray. So that's run in. So we've got the feeling of joy, a visible demonstration of joy, and then a shout of joy.

Okay. And then there's even a fourth word that's used, like about 20 times in the Hebrew Bible's Suss or Sasson. And I don't know. We'll look at examples. It seems to just mean, I, I don't know. I can't pin Sassone down. And the dictionary is they just say, like, joy or rejoice. Okay.

So there's four words that are used a lot in the Hebrew Bible. And if you look them up in the dictionary, all of them will just say joy, rejoice. And then the one word Rane will be like shout for joy, a shout of joy. Okay. So that's a pretty rich vocabulary. Yeah. Four words to talk about being joyful. Yeah.

So let's look at examples. Okay. Let's start at the classic, classic moment of communal joy, which is the wedding, the joy of a wedding. Jeremiah, after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, was just so tragic and horrific. He trusts that God's going to bring about a restoration of Jerusalem. And when he wants to describe that restoration, he says, once again, there will be heard in this place, that is Jerusalem. Jerusalem, of which you are now saying, oh, it's just a waste.

There's no people, not even animals around. The towns of Judah, the streets of Jerusalem are desolate without people. But again, there will be heard in this place. The voice of Sasson and the voice of Simcha. So there's our two words. The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. The voices of those who say Praise Yahweh

Of hosts for Yahweh's good His loyal love is forever The voices of those who are bringing Their thank you offerings To the house of Yahweh I'll restore the fortunes of the land As in the beginning So thank you offerings in the temple

Yeah, you don't think of the temple sacrifice moments of being joyful Like a wedding I think of those being very somber experiences. Okay. Well, I hope to change that impression. We're going to look at a lot more examples. Okay. No, it was a party time. Really? Because, especially a thank you offering, which was the majority of offerings that Israelites brought, you take home a bunch of what you offered. Some of what you offer is burnt up or given to the priests, but you get back most of it, and then you have a huge

feast. Big party. It's party time. Yeah. Offering a sacrifice. was party time for the majority of the offerings. So praising Yahweh in the temple, we think of that as like worship. And then there's the sound of people bringing their thank you offerings to God, and there's the sound of a wedding. And all three of those are set on analogy to each other.

Isn't that cool? And it's called Sasson and Simcha. So let's let the definitions build. Here's a rad little proverb about the joy that parents, experience in their children, sometimes. Proverbs 23, 22, it's from father to a son. Listen to your father, the one who gave you life.

And don't despise your mother when she's old. Buy truth, like get the truth. And don't sell it. Wisdom and instruction and understanding. So it's a common motif in Proverbs. Is your mom and your dad are God's gift of wisdom to you? you as a child, and from them you can buy truth that you should never sell. And the father of the righteous one, so the father of a son who goes on to do right by God

and neighbor, he will surely yield. Be happy, rejoice. The one who births a wise person will be happy with him. That is the one who is born. That's Samar. May your father and mother be glad. Oh, glad. That's a word we haven't used. Samarach. Ooh, glad. That's a good point.

That's another English word. I would just say I'm happy. I feel happy today. Yeah. And may the one who bore you rejoice. So it's our two words in a cool little symmetry. You've got Giel, Samerach, Samerach, and Giel in a row here. Okay.

So Giel, it's usually about action. Samaok is the most general. Mm-hmm. And this is all around a kid who has, has learned wisdom from their parents. Yeah. And then the parents are stoked. They're stoked.

When they launch a kid into the world who goes on to do right by other people and be really wise. Yeah. It's a cool feeling. It's a cool feeling. Samehah and Giel. Okay. Okay. Proverbs 27.9.

Perfume and incense that bring Samaic to a heart. So also the sweetness of a friend from their heartfelt advice. Isn't that a great proverb? Yeah. Hmm. I have gone into a room where they're burning like a really good incense. It just kind of makes the room feel special. Yeah.

Relaxes your body a little bit. So that feeling that you experienced is described here as Samoa. It's Samoa. It's Samoa to your heart. Isn't that interesting? And then that said on analogy to a friend giving you some real honest but important advice. and the bond would be like, whoa, you care about me

and you shared that. There's a sweetness there and those two things are set on analogy to each other. I love that. So, last one here. Just again, trying to get a sense of the vocabulary. Psalm 32, verse 10,

many are the pains or the troubles of the wicked. You do wrong by God and neighbor, you bring a heap of trouble on yourself. But for the one who trusts Yahweh, loyal love surrounds him. Be glad.

Sameach in Yahweh, and Giel, rejoice, you righteous ones. And Ranaen, shout for joy, all you upright of heart. So we got three words all right here. Sameh in Yahweh. So Sameh is something you feel because of your trust in somebody, like the emotion. Okay. But then there's a call to Geel, which might fit that outward demonstration.

And then Ronnean is like the ultimate outward demonstration. You just like... They're the exuberance of it. Yes. Woo! You talked about going to a soccer game with your family for the first time recently? Yeah, yeah. And just how, like, rowdy and exuberant the crowd get.

Oh, I'm so into it. Yeah. Yeah. Portland soccer is a really big deal. It was so rowdy. People were so into it. Yeah. That's it. That's Renayne.

So actually, I'm just noticing right here in Psalm 32, the contrast is like, basically, if you don't do right by God and neighbor, your life's likely going to be more full of trouble than not, and probably a lot of it self-caused. But if you trust in Yahweh and do right by God and neighbor, then, man, Yahweh will bring some of that goodness back around your way. And when you feel that, when you have the experience of a season of life well-lived, there's a feeling of happiness in Yahweh but then a demonstration of that

and then a full on just like you kind of lose self-control for a moment you just shout it's all you can think to do so these are our words okay Okay, here's it so interesting. The highest concentration of these words is found in the book of Psalms.

And most consistently, it's a response to what God has done. And in lots of these little scenes, you can put together how ancient Israelites celebrate something awesome would happen in their lives and if they lived in proximity to the temple they would bring a thank you offering to God and as they're offering it they would turn around

and just start storytelling and thanking God right there in the temple courts and very often that these words come up so let's look at some examples Psalm 42 Ah, which is a lament, actually. It begins by saying, like, where are you, God?

My soul is downcast within me. But he remembers something from the past that's really special to him. He says, I remember and I pour out my soul within me about the times when I would go along with the multitude. In fact, I would lead a group in procession to the house of God with a voice of Rinna, this rejoicing. shouting for joy and thanksgiving that's about giving a thanksgiving offering and a crowd celebrating a festival so there'd be these times of these offerings it was so communal that there'd be

crowds of people going and you would even have someone kind of leading that group like we're doing we're going to the temple we're doing the thing yeah and you're singing on the way yeah Yeah, you're shouting. Okay. Yeah, so we don't know that this is describing Passover or Pentecost or tabernacles. But think of when Jesus comes into the city on Palm Sunday in the Gospels and there's all that crew. Now, they're celebrating him, right, as the hope for Messiah. But you get the idea of a group of people that's traveled to the city.

And they're singing songs as they go through the gates on their way up to the temple. Yeah, that's cool. But Jesus' time that's already an ancient tradition. that this guy's remembering right here in Psalm 42. There were times when I got to do this, and it seems like the lament poem is like, those times are no more, and I long for them. Yeah.

But he has a sweet memory. I have thought before how cool it would be to have lived in a setting where, even if it was just once a year, it's you and your crew and your friends, and we're backpacking, we got all our food, we got tents, going to host us, but like we're going to caravan. Oh, I see. I see. To Jerusalem and then we're

going to party. It would be hard, but the memories. Oh, think of that. And then when you get there and you're celebrating. Yeah, yeah. It would shape you in a big way. It would shape you. It would be the annual highlight. It would be the favorite thing that you do all year. This is Passover. Yeah. This is Passover in ancient Israel. Yeah. Yeah, man. It's really remarkable. Like, we don't actually have very many, if at all, equivalence to this. Yeah? Yes. Okay.

So here's just two other examples. Isaiah chapter 30 remembers a moment like this. And he remembers of the party going into the nighttime. He says, it'll be like a song in the night. You know, like when the holy festivals are kept. So Passover, Pentecost. And gladness of heart, there's simcha, like somebody going along with the flute going up to the mountain of Yahweh.

So now we've got flute leaders. Yeah. Going, I mean, imagine the scene. Psalm 107. Here's a group of people that called out to God for help. God saved them. He sent his word and healed them. He delivered them from pits.

Why are you laughing? That's just the Bible. Well, Pitts, like, pits come up in the Bible a lot. They do. Is that a problem back then? Well, I just a little. A lot of pits? They're also, yes, but also, I think it becomes a symbol of like the trap on the road.

Yeah. The point is, it's in a very general kind of symbolic sense. They were in trouble. Yahweh rescued them. What are they going to do? They're going to go give thanks to Yahweh. And they are going to tell of his wonderful deeds for the children of Adam. They're going to offer sacrifices of Thanksgiving and tell of his works with Rinana, shouts of joy.

So you get the vibe. Yeah. This was a big part of Israelite life. You had a central city with the temple and annual pilgrimages and then personal pilgrimages. Like if you have the annual thing going with a group, then when you have major milestone events in your life, it will just occur to you like, I'm just going to do my own pilgrimage and go down there this weekend. And who wants to come with me? What, I had this great crop of wheat this year after two years of drought. and I just let's party man let's go to Jerusalem I'm going to offer a sacrifice and then we'll eat it and it'll be a great night yeah who's going to bring the flute like that's the vibe that's awesome isn't that a rad way to live okay here's what's cool think of a culture steeped in this way of life and then when the biblical authors retold stories from early in Israel's history you can see certain stories modeled on this pattern well and say the pattern one more

time the pattern is... Yahweh does something for you? Yeah. Something rad and your life happens. It's a good thing. And you go to the temple, give a thank you offering, and then you break out and song and shout and you tell the

story of what God did for you. Okay. Like just the lived experience. On a communal level with annual pilgrimages and then on an individual level. So the first story that's modeled on this pattern is actually the Exodus story. It's really cool.

So there's the night of Passover, and the Israelites leave Egypt, and then they pass through the waters of the sea, right, the perishing of Pharaoh's army, and then the narrative just stops, and we're told in Exodus 15, then Moses and the Israelites just broke out in song, and they sing what's called the song of the sea. And it begins, I'm going to sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted, horse and driver, he's hurled into the sea. the Lord's my strength, my defense, my salvation, he's my God, I'll praise him, my father's God, I'll exalt him. So there's no rejoicing vocabulary here, but lots of singing and praising.

But then, once the poem ends, what you're told is Miriam, this is Exodus 1520, Miriam, the prophet, Aaron's sister, but also Moses's sister. She got a tambourine, or a little timbrel. And she got a whole group of women To follow her They also had little tambourines And they're dancing And then Miriam led them in singing And then it's the same verbatim

From the opening lines of the song That Moses and the Israelites sang I'll sing to the Lord He's highly exalted Horse and rider he's hurled into the sea So it's got this like back and forth There's like the guys sing apart And then the ladies sing apart

It's like a full on worship procession and this part of the song is about how you're going to bring us into the land you promised and take us to your holy mountain where we'll worship you. Yeah, they're still hoping for something more. Yeah, the song itself is like in anticipation of us going to some holy space to meet you and we'll sing the song ahead of time. Yeah. That's the twist.

Okay. The song is anticipating the going to God's holy space. We're going to sing the song while we're still on the way to the holy mountain of God. still go through the wilderness and get to the mountain. But God has done a cool thing already, and we anticipate he will continue to, and so we'll sing on the way. So it's almost like a preemptive joy or an anticipatory joy, joy on the way. Yeah. This brings us to the Advent season then, which is about anticipation.

Exactly, totally. Why would the word joy be used when we're anticipating something? Usually you think of angst. when you're anticipating something that you want to come. Yeah, totally. So this is what's so interesting is that anticipatory joy. It's like celebrating ahead of time. And that's kind of what the song of the sea does.

God's already done something, but... Yeah, it's a little both. He's going to do something bigger, and we trust it'll do that bigger thing based on what he's already done, and we'll sing in the moment to just celebrate the whole story, as if it's already happened. Yeah. So it's just this very portrait of joy that you find in the joy vocabulary of the New Testament.

And it just saturates the New Testament. So there's two main words in the Greek New Testament for Joy, and one is Cairo, and the other is Agalliao, and the Cairo root is used like 120 times in the New Testament. Then the Agaliyao root is used just a little over a dozen times. So the Cairo route is the main one. And again, it's hard to tell them apart. rejoice, be happy.

But there's only two words instead of four in Hebrew Bible. The gospel account that uses joy vocabulary, the most of the four gospels, is Luke. People are just stoked in Luke. They're just happiness. And these are famous passages here. When the angel comes to John the Baptist dad to say like, hey, your wife's going to be pregnant,

give birth to a son named John, he says you're going to experience joy, Chara from the Chaiwa route and celebration from the Agaliaa route and many other people are going to Chairo at his birth so you're going to have joy

and you're going to celebrate and other people will celebrate at this kid when Mary sings her famous song when she finds out that she's going to give birth to the Messiah the son of God the first thing she says is my soul exalts in the Lord and my spirit agraliaos rejoices in God, my Savior. And these songs, especially

her song, it sounds like it just came right out of Isaiah and the Psalms. The famous moment when the angels come to the shepherds, you know, to announce the birth of Jesus. I bring you good tidings of great joy, you know. So this is the vibe in Luke. It's just joy everywhere. When Jesus sends out 72 of his followers to go do what he's been doing announcing the good news of the kingdom when they come back

and they're like, whoa, we got to heal some people and drive away evil forces. We're told that they return with joy and then we're told that Jesus himself rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. He was like so full of the presence of God that he has this moment of rejoicing.

What's cool about this is that think of how, as I was showing you in the Psalms, moments of joy are marked moments of either celebrating God's presence and activity in your life or actually straight up going to the temple. There's this connection of joy in God's presence. And that's what we're seeing here. God's acting in this way. He's going to send the forerunner, John the Baptist, Mary, celebrating God,

creating a body for the Messiah in her womb. And now here's Jesus rejoicing in the spirit, which is like the presence of the Father with Him. Lots of joy. Lots of joy. Luke uses the vocabulary of sadness turning to joy in the resurrection stories. When Jesus meets the two walking on the road to Emmaus, and they're talking about how their friend and leader got killed,

and they're really sad about it, In Luke 2417, he asked, what are you guys talking about? So you walk along, because they don't know it's Jesus. And Luke says, and they stood still, looking very sad. And then they say, well, we had this friend and leader, and then he got killed. And so they're sad. And then after he has a meal with them and the Bible study and shows them his hands and his feet, what we hear is that those two along with a group, this is in the,

Luke 2441. They were still not fully believing what was going on because of joy and they were just stunned. Hmm. They were in disbelief because of joy. Yeah. Isn't that interesting line? They were disbelieving still because of joy and they were just marveling, meaning they were so shocked. Yeah. That's interesting line. It goes from sadness to joy. Yeah. So sudden. Yeah. Are you mind hasn't embraced it. You're like, is this for real? Yeah. Can I really trust this is actually happening?

This is really good. Yeah. So in context, the moment Jesus is just all of a sudden in the middle of the room, it says they were startled and afraid because they thought they were seeing a ghost. Right. And then he says, why are you guys freaked out? Why are you doubting? Here I am.

Yeah. It's me. And then when they're still disbelieving because of joy, he says, you guys have anything to eat and then he sits and eats with them yeah so there's something about the shock yeah so luke has a rich vocabulary of joy to talk about the arrival of jesus messiah the experience of jesus messiah himself and then the transition from sorrow to joy on easter weekend as you continue on in luke's work in the book of acts joy vocabulary continues And what you find, especially, is the language of joy in moments of terrible, terrible tragic events.

And the followers of Jesus choose joy. Yeah. So here's just a couple examples. This is in Acts chapter 5, when Peter and company were teaching about Jesus in the temple, and they get arrested. They get put in prison, but then the Sanhedron aren't sure what to do with these guys. so instead they just have their backs whipped and humiliated and then they command them

like stop talking about Jesus and they let them go free. Yeah, it's a bad day. It's a bad day. Like, dude, think of that. You get arrested. Public humiliation. Publicly humiliated, literally.

And beat. And like beaten. Like your back's bloody. You're gonna have scars for that at the rest of your life. You walk out, they let you go. Yeah. You're walking out of the door.

This is Acts 5 verse 41. They, this Peter and Company, went out from the presence of the Sanhedron rejoicing because they had been considered worthy to be dishonored for the sake of the name. That is the name of Jesus. And every day

in the temple courts, house to house, they did not stop teaching and announcing the good news that Jesus was the Messiah. And this is a pattern that continues. There's this moment similar to that in Acts 13, where Paul and Barnavis have gone to a Jewish synagogue in the city called Pasadian Antioch.

And a bunch of the Jewish community leaders are not stoked. And so they get a mob together to get Paul and Barnabas kicked out of their city. And so they, like, beat them and, like, reject them. And so Paul and Barnabas shake the dust off their feet. Which is a turn of phrase? Mm-hmm. Like, we're leaving you guys behind. even the dust of your town

that's on the bottom of our feet. We shake it off, we're moving on. And they went on to the next city. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Hmm. Filled with joy and filled with the spirit of God.

Yeah, yeah. So this theme of joy, you can trace it right on through the letters. Paul, Peter, we'll talk about rejoicing, being glad, especially when something terrible happens to you because you follow Jesus. Yeah, I mean, that's the model in Scripture from the Song of the Sea, even.

We got a taste of what God can do, and now we're going to not only rejoice in that, we're going to rejoice in how the story is going to end. And then you get into these situations where you're dealing with suffering, like you're in the wilderness, and you can still rejoice. Yes. Yeah, so I think that's the twist is from that pattern we saw in the Psalms, You go celebrate with joy when God has done the thing. Yeah. The Exodus provides a tweak on that where God has done part of the thing,

a foundational part of the thing, like the climax with Passover. But then there's a whole journey on into the promised land that God has yet to do, but we're going to sing as if we're at the end of the story. That's what the song of the sea represents. And then here in the New Testament, that's the vibe, like Messiah. has come on Passover weekend, he died and was raised, and the promised land new creation is ahead. We're going to sing and rejoice in the present as if the story has already reached its completion.

And that's fully the picture of this rejoicing and suffering than you see. And that's the portrait of joy called up for followers of Jesus every year. If you celebrate Advent, it's that picture of joy. And joy is often connected with the presence of the Spirit in the New Testament. Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit. The disciples at Pasaddean Antioch are filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Paul will say in Romans the kingdom of God isn't eating or drinking or celebrating on certain days that different groups dispute which day is like the sacred day. He says it's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

What verse is that? Yeah, it's in Romans 14. The kingdom of God is not about eating or drinking, but it's about doing right by God and neighbor. It's about peace, and then it's about joy in the Holy Spirit. That's the kingdom of God right there. Which you can celebrate by eating and drinking, but eating and drinking was like being disputed on what days

should you celebrate certain holy days. And different Christians had different opinions and he's like remember remember the point remember the point yeah doing right by god and neighbor bringing about the shalom yeah fulfillment and then anticipating hmm and celebrating as if the new creation has already got started and to do that you're doing that in the holy spirit spirit of god yeah yeah joy preemptive joy yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's also joy for what god has done. From our vantage point, not only has the Messiah been born, he lived and died and was raised, and the spirit's been given to his people. So that, for us, is like our Exodus event.

And now we are waiting for the full realization of new creation. And our own songs of the sea, so to speak, are our way of going out with joy, like in the language of Islam 105. being brought out with shouts of joy. And so, you know, you end up in prison like Paul or Peter, or you just end up, we're outside Eden, and our bodies are crumbling, and it's hard to get along with each other. Families are all complicated and dysfunctional. There's lots to grieve there.

But that grief also needs to be balanced by, I guess, a bigger perspective. And that's Christian joy, choosing to not let my present, circumstances tell the whole story about what I believe is true about my life for the world. When I have that bigger story than that's a choice of joy. Hey, this is Tyler, and during this Advent series, we're going to end each episode with a little meditation talking with some of our own team members here at Bible Project to hear their thoughts on each of these words associated with Advent. And so today with me, I have someone very special. Would you like to introduce yourself? Sure. Yeah. My name is Alina Maria and I am an art director

here at Bible Project. So Alina, what comes to mind when you hear about this idea that joy is a response to God's goodness in our lives? I think for me, when I think about joy, I always think of this idea that no matter how stressful or how hard things are, God is always going to be there to provide and so don't dwell in the hardship and the sadness because there is something to always be joyful about doing work or during the holiday season when things are busy and it's easy to get really stressed about those types of things but for me I know at the end of all of that there's going to be something beautiful coming you know yeah so in a way the advent season is an example of what all of life is about yeah which is a deep anticipation of what God

it's going to do. I'm curious, Alina, what role does joy play in your life when it seems like needs aren't being met? I think it's about that faith and knowing, like, even if it's not a physical kind of thing that's being provided, there's so many other beautiful things and little joys along the way that, you know, you're going to get. Could you maybe share some of those things? Yes, it's saying good morning to my parents when I wake up. It's coming home. to my abuelos and just walking down the street with my sister after she gets off of work. My mom's cosido when she makes that and helping her prepare things. And it's those little everyday moments, you know, to be with my family and the time that's spent

together. I love how these words kind of feed into each other because the thing that you're finding hope in is the joy of the love you have for your family. So it's like, yeah, it's super cool. And knowing that in all of that, we love because Jesus has shown us the ultimate example of love in a life laid down. Exactly. Love brings you joy. It all ties together.

That's great. Thanks for joining me, Alina. And as you can tell, there's a large team of us here at the Bible Project that help make the podcast happen for a full list of everyone involved. Check out the show credits at the end of any podcast episode, wherever you stream the podcast on our website and, on our app. Bye. Bible Project is a crowdfunded nonprofit, and we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything we make is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this

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and understanding. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Bible Project is a non-profit funded by people like me. Find free videos, articles, podcasts, classes, and more on the Bible Project app. And at Bibleproject.com. Thank you.