The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
Joy to the World… and the Wounded
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Hey, Merry Christmas! Welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. What in the world are you doing? Listening to this podcast on Christmas morning, the day of Jesus' birth. And I'm glad you're here. I'm Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffing.com, and we are in the middle of our unwrapped series. Yes, even here on Christmas Day. Merry Christmas. We've been working our journey through the gritty, the sacred, often overlooked truths of the Christmas story. And today, it seems fitting, we're going to talk about joy. Not the light, fluffy kind, but the kind that shows up right alongside the pain. We sing it every year. Joy to the world. I won't sing for you, even though I was an old worship pastor. Old is the key word there. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. We sing it every year. We light candles, we decorate it. Maybe you did it last night at Christmas Eve services. Maybe you had church today services and you did it. We decorate, we smile, we try everything warm and hopeful and fuzzy. But for many people, including a lot of ministry leaders, Christmas just doesn't feel joyful. It's it feels heavy and complicated and exhausting, sometimes even grief-filled. And here's the wild part. If you think about it, that's exactly how the first Christmas was, too. We've been talking about this on the podcast the last couple of weeks. And a lot of times we forget this, but the birth of Jesus just came into a dangerous, oppressive, really violent world. Remember what Herod pulled right after Jesus was born, right? Rome ruled with cruelty. Herod was a paranoid tyrant. And like I just mentioned, he ordered the murder of children. Can you imagine? Mary gave birth far from home with no safety net. Joseph had to pack up his young family and flee to Egypt because his child's life was at risk. And yet, in that same story, the angel sang and the shepherds ran with joy. The star pointed the way, and a baby's cry marked the arrival of redemption. And joy and pain existed in the exact same space. And God didn't wait until everything was peaceful and pain-free to bring that joy. He brought it right in the middle of the pain, and he still does. If we can get real for a minute on this Christmas day, it's just you and me here today, right? Nobody else is listening. It's just Christmas. It's you and me. Christmas today might feel more like survival than it does celebration. And if it does for you today, you're not alone. Maybe someone you love is struggling. Maybe your church is hurting. Maybe your staff culture is just a dumpster fire right now. Maybe you're grieving a loss or carrying a weight that nobody even knows about. And then all of a sudden you look up and it's December 25th, it's Christmas. Smiling, glowing loud. You're expected to leave with joy when inside you just feel tired and fragile and broken. But listen. Your joy doesn't have to cancel all your wounds. And your wounds certainly don't disqualify you from joy. Biblical joy isn't about pretending that everything is okay. Biblical joy is about trusting that God is still working, even when things honestly are just not okay. Christmas Christmas is proof that joy and sorrow can coexist, that you can cry and still hope, and that you can grieve and still worship, and that you can hurt and still celebrate that. But God shows up anyway in the midst of it. Because the truth is, joy isn't the absence of pain, joy is the presence of Jesus right smack dab in the middle of it. Some of the most honest holy Christmases have been the ones where I wasn't okay, where I felt small or lost or stretched beyond capacity, but somehow joy still broke through in a quiet moment. A lyric I've heard a thousand times, but suddenly meant something. A message from a friend, a reminder that God still sees, still cares, still comes close. You don't have to force joy this year, but you might want to make room for it, even in the heartache that you may be feeling, because God isn't scared of your sadness. He's not looking for your perfection either. He just wants to be present. And when he is, that's where your joy could start. Couple of things for you to think through on this Christmas day, if you would. Where do you feel wounded or mere or weary this Christmas? And then how might joy still find its way into that space? Hope you have a very Merry Christmas. And you'll be back tomorrow with a special day after the big day episode. You won't want to miss it right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hope you're having a great Merry Christmas. Wish all those around you a Merry Christmas for the last of your comments.
