God Is the Happiest Being in the Universe

Perhaps we need Santa at Christmas to help us be merry and joyous because
we have a flawed understanding of Jesus. From today's gospel text we learn
that the first reaction to Jesus' presence on earth, of God-in-our-midst,
was joy. Joy so tremendous, joy so utterly overwhelming that it must
somehow escape the bounds of earth itself and jump towards the heavens.

In John Ortberg's wonderful book The Life You've Always Wanted, he writes:

We will not understand God until we understand this about him: "God is the
happiest being in the universe" (G. K. Chesterton). God knows sorrow.
Jesus is remembered, among other things, as a 'man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief.' But the sorrow of God, like the anger of God, is
his temporary response to a fallen world. That sorrow will be banished
forever from his heart on the day the world is set right. Joy is God's
basic character. God is the happiest being in the universe.

Joy is what makes Christmas. Each of us may look to some annual family
tradition to trigger that joy. But the trees, the carols, the cookies, the
presents, the parties, are only various expressions of a single experience
of the spirit JOY born again into our souls.

Leonard Sweet, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com