“God wants you to be happy!”

I sometimes wonder if those of us in the Reformed world view such statements with mild suspicion. He desires us to be holy, sure. He wants us to walk in the truth, of course. But happy? At best, it’s a low-priority side benefit.

Yet the angels announced the coming of Christ as “good news of great joy that will be for all people” (Luke 2:10); the shepherds set off for Bethlehem in pursuit of a child who would bring true and lasting happiness. Likewise, the magi “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” when they saw the star that would lead them to Christ (Matt. 2:10). Both groups approached Christ with a sense of delighted expectation.

And it’s with this same expectation of joy that we should approach worship with God’s people. “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). In the advent season, we look forward to Christ’s second coming—the day when he will receive us into glory and the uninterrupted pleasures of his presence. For now we taste them, albeit weakly, as we come to him in worship.  

If the advent season looks forward, Christmas itself reminds us that Christ has already come to save, and so our future is secure. When we hear of all he’s done as his Word is preached, when we sing his praises together, when we come in his name to our heavenly Father, we begin to drink even now from the river of his delights (Ps. 36:8).

—Jonty Rhodes, author, Reformed Worship