Dec 16, 2025
Third week of Advent!
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Third week of Advent!
🕯️ ADVENTure Week 3: JOY is live! Joy isn’t just a feeling — it’s a fruit of the Spirit that cannot be taken. From Mary and Elizabeth to Simeon and the Wise Men, discover the deep, lasting joy that comes when we pursue, encounter, and worship Jesus. ➡️ Read the new post here #Advent #Joy #ChristmasDevotional #FathomChurch #PastorNathanDeisem #ADVENTure #ChristianJoy #FruitOfTheSpirit
Probably that Joseph followed the Lord faithfully, with all his heart. He knew the Law of Moses—that betrothed women who committed adultery
"Joseph reflects God's mercy in miniature. The best he could think of to help Mary was a quiet divorce, and no shame to him. It takes God Himself to do much better than that—to do the miracle of turning faithless people into the loving Bride of Christ, Christians who love their Lord so much they would rather die than be without Him. And why? Because He loved us first. After what Jesus did for us, who can resist Him?"
"The third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday. In Latin, gaudete means “rejoice.” This Sunday is filled with a particular joy: Christmas draws near!
Accordingly, the readings for this Sunday exhort us to be joyful and rejoice: shout for joy, be glad and exult with all your heart, cry out with joy and gladness, give thanks, sing praise, shout with exultation, rejoice in the Lord always … again, rejoice! The pure exuberance expressed in Scripture this Sunday is the joy of all the ages bursting and singing forth, knowing the Good News that is about to be bestowed upon us all. It can hardly be contained. In fact, it can’t be. Embraced by God’s love so tenderly, so intimately, we are compelled to love in kind. It is a true exchange. We are given God’s love. And with it, as St. Thérèse of Lisieux once told us, we can love God and one another. This is just what John the Baptist exhorts us to do in the Gospel reading today. All of our joy in preparing our souls for Christ, and of finding ourselves in God’s embrace, erupts and overflows in acts of thanksgiving, carried out with deep joy. Be generous with God’s love, John says. It was a gift; give accordingly."
Week 3: Joy
Joy to the World On the third Sunday of Advent we celebrate joy. Let me go back for a moment: The nation of Israel during the time of the book of Isaiah was walking in chaos and sin while claiming to follow God (the closest parallel I can come up with is if you were to meet a person who says they're a Christian and yet they treat people horribly). The Assyrians came in and wreaked violence and havoc on them at this time. So now we've set up a time of chaos and pain and sadness, so where is the joy? Well Isaiah wrote then the prophecy that redemption would come to the nation (geographically started in the north and came south just as the Assyrians had. This was written 700+ years before the birth of Christ). "Those living in darkness have seen a great light." The darkness is the sin and the evil of the world and God said, "Enough," and shone the light on the people not just showing them their sin and brokenness but the solution, the cure for it. (Spoiler alert: it was Jesus). Looking to this future Isaiah described the joy the people would feel. As my pastor said this morning, "like the peace after a war where you were the victor." That time of joy he was looking forward to was Christmas, the birth of Christ. Why have joy on this occasion? Jesus came to break the hold of sin over us, and to take the weight of oppression from us. Israel was then as we often are now: in a place where there was no hope left. Armies invading, oppression, loss and sin and pain and injustice. And it was into all this that Jesus came to bring us out of it. We could never pull ourselves from our own darkness, so Jesus went in to get us. Darkness to light, that is the kind of lasting joy that we celebrate, and this is a joy that can look forward to the day when there will be no warring armies. No more bombings or shootings, no more injustice and crime and hatred. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards those on whom His favor rests.