The Promise of Joy

“I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10).

The angels’ announcement is simple, direct, and explosive: joy has entered the world. Not a mood. Not sentimentality. A deep, enduring joy rooted in the arrival of a Saviour. At the centre of Christmas joy is forgiveness — the lifting of guilt, the undoing of shame, the opening of a future that sin had closed off. Where sins are forgiven, joy follows. This must be said clearly.

But then Luke tells the story of Herod.

How can this be a story of joy when it includes the killing of children? How can “good news of great joy” sit alongside terror, cruelty, and political violence? The Christmas narrative is honest enough to show us that joy does not arrive in a neutral world. It enters a world already bent, already brutal, already fearful. Herod’s violence is not a contradiction of Christmas — it is the diagnosis of the world Jesus comes to heal.

Joy, as Scripture understands it, is not the absence of darkness. It is the presence of God within the darkness.

The Bible consistently links joy to forgiveness and restoration. David prays, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (Ps 51:12). Jesus speaks of heaven’s joy over one sinner who repents (Luke 15). Paul writes of a joy that can exist even in chains (Phil 1). This is not surface-level happiness. It is joy born from being put back together with God.

But Jesus does not only bring joy by dealing with sin one day. He brings joy now.

He brings joy through his presence with the weary and excluded. Through meals with sinners. Through sight to the blind. Through dignity to the forgotten. Through truth that frees, and grace that rebuilds. Joy grows wherever Jesus restores what has been bent out of shape.

C. S. Lewis once wrote that joy is “the serious business of heaven.” It is not light or flimsy. It is weighty. It is costly. It is forged on the far side of sorrow. This is why the cross does not cancel Christmas joy — it completes it. The resurrection joy of Easter is already seeded in the manger.

Herod grasps at control and produces terror.
Jesus gives himself in love and produces joy.

And still today, Jesus brings his layered joy:
Joy of forgiveness — knowing the debt is lifted.
Joy of presence — knowing God is near.
Joy of restoration — seeing life slowly mended.
Joy of hope — knowing evil does not get the final word.

Where might Jesus be seeking to restore joy in your life this Christmas?