Isaac Watts was among the most productive hymn writers in the early 1700s, it is said he penned approximately 750 of them in his lifetime. Of all the songs he wrote, many of which are still sung by churches today, “Joy to the World”  is the most well-known. As a pastor who sought to write new songs for his congregation, he was inspired to write it while studying Psalm 98 in 1719. From that study came these, now familiar words:

Joy to the world; the Lord is come;
Let Earth receive her King;
Let ev'ry Heart prepare Him room,
And Heav'n and nature sing.

Watts debuted this song with his congregation, not at the Christmas Eve service, but on Easter Sunday. The inspiration was the second coming of Christ, as is made clearer in the third verse:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

Now, I'm not about to begin a campaign to change the time of year we sing “Joy to the World.”  On the contrary, a song about the second coming of Christ fits better into Advent season than we may originally think. The traditional structure of the 4-week Advent season had a twin focus of both the first and second coming.

During the first two Sundays, the church would reflect on the Second Coming by hoping and praying for the sure return of the Lord. Then the last two weeks of Advent would shift to focus on the first coming, the arrival of the King in a manger.

Advent rightly affirms the already/not yet reality that we live in, Jesus has already come and conquered the power of sin and death, but He has not yet returned to remove the presence of sin and suffering. And so we wait in a still-fallen world, but we wait with “inexpressible and glorious joy.”

The Christmas story doesn’t just speak to what Jesus did in the past or what Jesus will do in the future, but it affirms that we have everything we need right here and right now.  This is what Peter was affirming to the early church – we do not physically see Him, but we really believe in Him and that He is in us, which fills us with “joy unspeakable” as the old King James version said – the kind of joy that can barely be explained to those who have never experienced it.

The gospel says you can feel real joy in the fight against private sin, in that tricky relationship you have with a selfish coworker, and in the pain of loneliness after a longtime friend or loved one deserts you.

Jesus came so we can face the realities of life in a fallen world with real joy right now.

So, consider this the permission you didn’t need to keep on singing “Joy to the World” at Christmas, and at Easter, and every day in between, because the joy we have in Christ is rooted in the past, guaranteed in the future, and very much real in the present.

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