Advent Day 21: Joy Found in Touching the Untouchables

Who are the "untouchables" in your life?

In a world pregnant with discrimination and hypocrisy, do you find yourself struggling with living too close to people who are different from you? Do you feel less inclined to give of your time, toil, and treasure to people with a different ethnic background, different sexual orientation, different religious beliefs, different economic status, different political values, etc.?

Advent calls you and me to touch the "untouchables" of our lives for joy is found in that point of contact.

Inching ever closer to December 25 (the day commonly held as a special time to commemorate and celebrate the coming of Jesus on earth), I find myself pondering more and more the promise of joy found in Advent. 

Joy. 

Deep joy.

Uncontainable joy.

Immeasurable and boundless joy.

This joy that Advent encapsulates, no earthly inducement can unearth it in human hearts and no earthly blaze can scorch it. This joy is immovable, invincible, irreversible, irreplaceable, inerasable. This joy is ever present because it is not circumstantial; it is based upon Immanuel in whose presence there is fullness of joy. 

This joy that Advent promises resides in a spirit of servant-heartedness. In fact the Coming One says it this way, 

"For I was hungry and you gave Me food; 

I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; 

I was a stranger and you took Me in; 

I was naked and you clothed Me; 

I was sick and you visited Me; 

I was in prison and you came to Me . . . 

Assuredly, I say to you, 

inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, 

you did it to Me." 

Matthew 25:35-36 & 40, NKJV 

In other words, the joy of Advent is not about the spirit of entitlement that causes us to "take, take, take" but the spirit of compassion that teaches us to "give, give, give." 

Find joy in giving love.
Find joy in giving grace.
Find joy in giving kindness.
Find joy in giving compassion.

Do you and I desire such joy today? Advent calls us to anticipate seeing Christ in the needy places of this world. Advent invites us to see not only the favored few but each orphan, each widow, each homeless traveler, each wayward father, each grieving face, each broken heart as an opportunity to serve and show love and exercise compassion. It reminds us to live in anticipation of the Savior not only when it is convenient but every hour, every minute, and every second of every day.

And such joy is impossible to have or maintain from a human perspective; however, "with God nothing will be impossible." It is His hand that comes to enable us to offer a sip of water to a thirsty child, His heart that comes to ennoble ours to love and touch the "untouchables" of this world for His glory.

Yes, come to our hearts, Lord Jesus!