Last time I offered some Transcendence.  This time I want to offer Sheer Joy!  These few things fill my heart with laughter or happiness or wonder or all of them at the same time.  Enjoy them!

The first is probably my favorite minute and twenty-two seconds on Youtube.   It’s one of my worst and favorite jokes of all time, but told to the Dalai Lama.  It, um, didn’t go well.  I love this little clip.  It has never failed to make me laugh, and still doesn’t.

Then this, o my!  God’s world!  God’s creation!  Just stunning.  Go full screen and full volume, open your heart and let wonder fill it.  It’s a nice, and important, touch that it includes cities.

Then, who’s not filled with a little bit of glee when Simon Cowell gets taken down a peg?  Who could make even Simon Cowell, say “Praise the Lord”?  A pastor.  But hear the words of the song.  The praises of God just want to be offered, and heard.

Finally, and just right for the season, what might it look like to see God’s kingdom breaking into the normalcy of every day life?  What would God’s people do?  What would it be like for those who don’t know the glory of the Lord yet but find themselves being swept up into it?  Maybe something like this in a food court, or maybe even better like this in a high-end shop when materialism is shattered for just a moment by the everlasting.  I can see it my mind’s eye…when the veil begins to drop, and Reality begins to break through reality.  Maybe the second coming of Jesus will start with something like this, when followers of Jesus just can’t contain themselves anymore.  I’ll tell you, my heart fills with joy and my eyes fill with tears whenever I hear this line from the Hallelujah Chorus, from Revelation 11.15 actually, ““The kingdom of the world…….is……become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”  May it be so, and sooner rather than later, o Maranatha!

A Blessed Advent to you and a Merry Christmas!  May your season be filled with…Sheer Joy!