A Very Bizarre Joy

And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 

Luke 1:30-33 

I am not sure if this is true, and I highly doubt it is, but I wonder if this is one way the incarnation of Jesus happened within the Trinity. Remember the back story – the archangel Lucifer rebelled against God. The Son watched as our Father kicked him out of seamless, joyful, Divine intimacy. Then, Lucifer-turned-Satan took our Father’s kingdom from man in Eden as recorded in Genesis 3. In response, according to Galatians 4:4, in the fullness of time, God our Father injected His Son onto the battlefield. 

Kingdom business is personal. In Mark 1:14-15 Jesus basically told the enemy, “You took something from my Dad and I’ve come to take it back!” 

This is where my wondering kicks in. Before Gabriel’s announcement to Mary in the Luke passage above, I see the Father turn to the Son and say, “The time has come for you to get on the battlefield.” The Son says, “YES! It is about time. LET’S GO!” The Son is no pew-sitter. He knows what He can do. He knows what Satan has beguiled from man. And He is ready to fight. 

Then the Father says, “Alright. Here is the plan. Holy Spirit is going to seed you in the womb of a peasant girl named Mary. She and Joseph will love and parent you. Then, at 30, your ministry will begin!” 

“Uh…………what?” The Son stammered. “A baby…to who? For HOW long?” “I’ve been waiting thousands of years (however long you date things) to take back what is ours. Thousands of years to fight. Come on, Dad.” 

Dad replies, “Baby Jesus sounds nice!” 

Haha…there are so many theological problems with this scenario and for those of you who love the weeds of providence I wouldn’t be surprised if you stopped reading already! BUT, I have a point in this absurdity and it is to highlight the absurdity, the out-of-the-box, the unconventional ways of our Father that lead to victory and JOY. 

I want to live full of joy. As we looked at in our last Overflow, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are joy-filled and their desire for us is joy. How do you get passed Jesus in John 15:11, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full”?  

I think one of the primary reasons that we in Christ experience so little joy is because we fear the absurd, out-of-the-box, unconventional ways of our Father. Can you think of a biblical story that depicts a person’s life led by Yahweh that went in some conventional way?  

• Noah got a word to build a boat.  

• Abram got a word that he would have a child at 99. 

• When Moses was born his mother placed him in a basket and put him in the Nile River to escape the edicts of the Pharoah to kill Hebrew babies.  

• Joshua got a word to attack the stronghold of Jericho with…music! (True story – Some jack rabbit neighbor yesterday was blasting their bass – our walls shook and my brain was scrambled.) 

• Hosea got a word to marry……………a prostitute.  

• Peter got a word that through him, an uneducated fishermen, and his merry band of scallywags that God was going to change the world.  

• Not-yet-Paul-Jewish All Star-Saul got a word that he would become an apostle for the very Jesus that he was busy slaughtering His people.  

These barely scratch the surface of the absurd. And there are micro absurdities all over Scripture tucked in and around the bigger stories we all know. Yet, in the fruit of these stories, in the outcome of those who said, “Yes,” and lived God’s authorship there is……….JOY.  

And joy makes sense, I think. Consider the impact on your internal life if you were CONVINCED that your life was actively being led by the Creator of the Universe. The only reason you are where you are, in the condition in which you are, at every moment of life, is because God our Father wants you there. Empowered by the Spirit of God Himself. Breathing in the authority of Jesus the King of all Kings, the One who Vladimir Putin, Xi, Starmer, Macron, Milei, Trudeau, and Trump will all bow before. Who is Musk, Bezos, Buffet, this Dow guy or his friend Nasdaq when compared to the Light of the World?  

Wouldn’t you expect joy to flow if you were CONVINCED?  

I am in the middle of re-watching some Star Wars movies. I watched 7, 8, and 9 and then Rogue 1 and am halfway through 4. The movies tell the story of an alternate reality in a galaxy far, far away. The Matrix movies tell of an alternate, co-existing reality we can awaken to if we take the red pill. In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the protagonists enter an alternate reality by stepping through the back of a wardrobe.  

Christmas, the “What?” of the incarnation, is a blazing sign of an alternate reality. Christmas is not sweet baby Jesus. Christmas is a sinking deeper into the Kingdom-among-us. We believe an angel appeared and proclaimed to a poor teenage girl that she would be impregnated by the Holy Spirit and carry the Son of God who would become the Savior of Mankind.  

Either you are nuts OR there is an incredible, wonderful, majestic, mysterious, fantastic other reality all around us, available to us. I would LOVE to see JOY flow in your life and I would love to see it flow in mine. I see all things in my life as either leading me deeper in the Kingdom or luring me away from that center. Maybe you can see the same. 

LIFE in the OVERFLOW, JOY in the OVERFLOW, happens as we allow the Holy Spirit to continually draw us out of this world, to live in Him, and to follow Him no matter how unconventional His leading will be.  

May you and your family have an excellent celebration of the wonderfully exquisite, bizarre planning of our Father! May you belly laugh at the goodness of God to bless and lead people like you, families like yours! And may your joy be infectious to others!