Christmas in church is not Christmas without singing Joy to the World at least once. Few carols are as popular, yet none is as misunderstood.

In fact, Joy to the World is not a Christmas carol at all.

No longer.

I don’t think there’s ever been a year where the power of the media became such a subject of public focus. Somehow, we have always assumed — naively, perhaps — that for the most part what we saw and read was a reasonable representation of reality.

No longer.

If any group of people can mine gold out of the sludge of 2020, it’s us. Why? The answer is simple: Christians are in the hope business.

I find it interesting that there’s all sorts of teaching about faith, but very little about hope.

I think it’s because faith deals in tangible things: faith in God, faith in Christ, faith that the Bible is true, faith that God will protect us or help us in a given situation, faith for specific things we feel God has promised us.

A man I have great respect for, and whose life has touched untold numbers of people around the world, addressed our congregation this week on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. He reminded us how easy it is to move through life without clearly focussing on how much time we have left. His observation was that it isn’t till most people hit fifty that they begin to think about their legacy.

“The pressure is getting to me!”

That’s a statement all of us, except those in extreme denial, can relate to. And 2020 certainly has turned the heat up even more than usual.

Even Paul admitted being in a similar situation. The trouble that came upon him at one point was so severe he was utterly burdened beyond his own strength. He even felt a sentence of death had been passed on him. Later he talked about being afflicted but not crushed. The latter word refers to being stuck in a mountain pass so narrow you had to squeeze through it. He had squeezed his way in, but didn’t know if he was going to get out. For someone slightly claustrophobic like me, that’s a nightmare scenario.

But it got me thinking. What is it that we add to the mix? What is missing when we’re not there?