Christmas lights have become big business and serious work. I know a guy, a computer engineer by trade, who plans his exterior illumination display all year long. It’s a choreographed light show that annually draws a crowd and has even been on the news. There’s another local family who makes it “snow” with soap suds in their driveway. Often there is a line to get to the house because all the kids get out of their cars to play in it. Many of my friends live on streets that coordinate their decorations. When it comes to Christmas lights, some of you have never heard that less is more, and some of you Clark Griswolds transform the front of your homes to resemble a Vegas casino. A friend and I were recently observing that you never really know someone until you see how they decorate their homes for Christmas.

We decorate like maniacs because Christmas is instinctively a joyful time of year. Even people who don’t care anything about celebrating Jesus betray themselves by their lighting displays.

Read

In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.”
-Luke 2:8-12 (emphasis mine)

The birth of Jesus was good news of great joy. In Greek, the word “great” in this verse is “megas”, the word from which we derive our word “mega”. I like to read it like this, “I proclaim to you good news of mega joy.” It enhances the meaning to me a little better than the word “great.”

As we unpack mega joy, it might help if we look at some important celebrations in the Old Testament. The feast calendar given to Israel (read a synopsis in Leviticus 23) was a series of celebrations that acted as rehearsals for them so that they would recognize the Messiah when he came, and as a prophetic calendar demonstrating God’s redemptive plan for Israel and the nations. We are likely familiar with Passover and have at least a basic understanding of the significance of that feast in association with the work of Jesus. The other feasts are vague if we even know of them at all However, each of the feasts is a prophetic exercise that points to Jesus.

To set up the last week of Advent, I want to introduce you to the seventh levitical feasts. It’s known by several names: Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Booths, Sukkoth, The Feast of Ingathering, The Season of Our Joy, or simply, The Feast. This is the last feast of the year and falls after the fall harvest somewhere in late September or early October. The Israelites were required to build booths (tiny temporary shelters) in which they would live during the feast to commemorate the tents in which they lived during the wilderness wandering, the provisions God made for them as they wandered, and as reminder that God dwelled with his people in the tabernacle. God did not wait until they were established and had gotten themselves cleaned up before he gave them his presence in the wilderness. Instead, he moved in with them in their roaming city and rested his glory in a tent just like the Israelites.

For this reason, The Feast of Tabernacles is the most joyous feast of the year. It’s a whole week of rejoicing and worship, of feasting and giving gifts. Historians tell us that unless you’ve seen Jerusalem during this feast, you haven’t seen joyous celebration. And why wouldn’t it be the season of joy? Can you think of anything that would bring more joy than God dwelling with his people?

It shouldn’t be surprising, considering that Jesus came to dwell among us, that most scholars believe Jesus was born on the Feast of Tabernacles. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? At the exact time the whole Jewish world was celebrating that God dwelled with them in the temporary tabernacle of the wilderness, God was literally coming to dwell with them in Jesus.

So, during the most joyful time of year, while the shepherds were keeping watch over the sacrificial lambs by night, and angel of the LORD appeared to them and delivered good news of more joy than what they were already experiencing—MEGA joy—Because the one who dwelled with them in booths had finally come to dwell with them in a body.

Pray: Jesus, joy-bringer, teach me how to rejoice the way the Israelites did year after year as they remembered their time in the wilderness and your provision for them as they wandered. The news the angels delivered to the shepherds was indeed good news of great joy for me!