A Beautiful Madness

Everything and anything worth doing is a little bit mad.

On this third Sunday of Advent, we light the third candle on the wreath — the joy candle. This reflection below is about joy in the time of Advent and was originally shared on Mockingbird earlier this week.

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The post office worker’s name tag said JOY and she remained true to her name as the line stretched towards the door on a rainy afternoon in Kent, Ohio. With a cheerful spirit, she told us (Customers 1–12) that the reason Customer 5 was playing a video loudly on his phone was because he is deaf. Customer 5 had a huge smile on his face as he waved at Joy, and she smiled and waved back at him as the maddening sound of monster trucks crashing into each other sounded through the post office.

“Repeat the sounding joy!”

This time of year, I open my rusty mailbox and amidst the offers for credit cards I do not need is a thick, cream envelope addressed in the cursive handwriting of my friend I met when we were eighteen. Inside the envelope is a card with photos of her boys — two under two — and they wear cowboy boots while beaming at their mother. My friend tells me that sometimes motherhood feels a bit like madness and I believe her, but I think she bears it well. I hang this card and the others in my kitchen, and sometimes I stand there and look at them in awe. God knew man would go mad if he had to be alone; cards from friends remind me that I am not.

“And wonders of His love!”

There is something incredibly endearing about a busy post office during the holidays. Despite our phones and our addiction to individualism and the dying art of cursive handwriting, We the People of the United States still endeavor to send each other packages and letters at Christmastime. Yes — it’s expensive and yes — it takes time, and yes — sometimes the recipients lack gratitude that you sent them a card or gift. Why do we bother? Practically, the whole enterprise doesn’t make much sense. But if we’re being honest, is there much about this time of year that does? Does Christmas (or Advent for that matter) really make sense? Does singing, “Joy to the world! The Lord is come,” 2,000+ years after this aforementioned-Lord was actually born make sense?

In his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” Wendell Berry wrote:

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

Expect the end of the world? Laugh? Be joyful though you have considered all the facts? That doesn’t make much sense either. A Mad Farmer, indeed. But let’s concentrate on the last phrase: “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” Once you have considered all of the facts about the world we live in, being joyful seems like an insane and even inappropriate response.

“While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains / Repeat the sounding joy.”

In 2024, entire fields, towns, and livelihoods were decimated by floods from Hurricane Helene. The hills of the Holy Land are still being bombed. Cancer was made plain on the MRI of a 38-year-old mother of four. Be joyful? I have considered the facts, and to be blunt, being joyful sounds like absolute madness. And yet.

And yet, if we look to scripture, we find that these are not, in fact, unprecedented times. As we take a closer look, we can discover that being joyful this Advent season is actually a very appropriate and very possible response. This joy is not one of forced merriment and festive cheer. It is joy after the flood. It is joy amidst the rubble. It is joy in the face of death. It is joy because of Christ.

Psalm 126 is a song of ascent, written after the return of the Israelites from Babylonian captivity. For the Israelites, Babylonian captivity marked the end of the world as they knew it. The temple was destroyed. Their power was stripped. Sin ran rampant and God’s wrath was revealed. And yet, joy is mentioned three times in this Psalm — “Repeat the sounding joy!” A rather remarkable emotion after decades of duress, wouldn’t you agree? The Psalmist writes:

Those who sowed with tears
will reap with songs of joy.

Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed,
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves. (Ps 126:6–7)

The Israelites’ mouths were filled with laughter and joy burst from their lips. Goodness so good it felt like a dream was given to a people who had not only been held captive by Babylon, but held captive by their own lack of repentance. The transgressors’ lives are transformed. Even though God considered all the facts, he showed mercy. In a tit-for-tat society, this remarkable turn of events doesn’t make much sense. One might even say it is madness.

“He comes to make His blessings flow / Far as the curse is found.”

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Freedom wasn’t just for the Israelites in Babylonian captivity. Release from darkness was not just for those in physical chains. It is for us all! The brokenhearted sing “Joy to the world!” even if we look a bit mad. Why? Because there is good news to proclaim: the Lord has come for you and me and Customer 5 at the Kent, Ohio, post office. He has come, and he will come again.

Everything and anything worth doing is a little bit mad. To spend money and time to send letters and curated packages when you could easily send DMs and Venmo gift cards? To be patient with a stranger as his monster truck videos echo off the post office like a mutilated pipe organ in a cathedral? To fall in love, to marry, to have two children under two? To make plans for Christmas a week after the double mastectomy? To rebuild, to restore, to repent? To celebrate a season that centers around the story of the divine savior of mankind who came into this world as a humble, human baby? Madness — all of it! A beautiful madness.

“Repeat the sounding joy.”