Happiness and Meaning

Advent reminds us that an essential part of being human is our ability to long and to hope for change. The Old Testament writers harness the ability to long for things with great skill, the Israelite history is a history of a people turning longing and desire into a religion: think of the Promised Land and the Messiah. In Advent – the season of expectant waiting - we are given the opportunity to hone our skills of describing the things that we long for, the things that we expect and hope God to provide. However, I wonder how convincingly Christian voices in our culture manage to articulate a vision of God. When we contrast that with our culture, we notice one that is fantastically good at harnessing the language of desire and longing to sell things and lifestyles. For example, we will be told: salvation is to be found in this model of a car; that this perfume will give you a glamorous life-style; that only if you buy this new and better model will you be fulfilled – that, in summary, meaning and happiness are located in the acquisition of more.

We are habituated to our desire being manipulated in all sorts of different ways, but we are probably much less immune to it than we think we might be. The market economy knows that desire is more profitable than fulfillment, and ensuring that people keep longing for the next model of the i-phone, or the next bigger television is what marketing and advertising is all about. Having the thing is much less exciting than longing for it, and so not being fulfilled through buying more feeds the machine. It is a confident and loud business – no-one feels embarrassed by trying to get people to buy more – it is our way of life, who we are.

In contrast, Christian voices tend to be quiet and shy ones in our culture; Jesus is not in fashion, persuading people to believe is embarrassing. We do not spend billions of pounds advertising our way of life, as John Lewis, Sainsbury’s and so on will spend this Christmas. People will flock to see Santa, who is neutral and inoffensive, but fewer will notice the child in the manger.

But, we mustn’t give up; we must remember the value of what God offers his people and keep inviting people into experience who we are. As heralds of the new kingdom we must learn again to be confident in God and in what we believe. John the Baptist is the icon of a man who heralded in the new kingdom by pointing the way to Jesus. Our calling and heritage is to point the way to Jesus still, amidst the clamouring voices that seek to locate salvation elsewhere.

In the short article I wrote for the December magazine I mentioned some research ('The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters', Emily Esfahani) that sought to find out where true human happiness was to be found- a popular subject in our culture. In the first instance the research found that meaning was a greater indicator of well-being than happiness. And meaning the researcher found comes from: 1) a sense of belonging; 2) having a purpose; 3) partaking in storytelling which is redemptive; and 4) experience of transcendence.

Just reflect for a moment on those things. What do you notice about them? What Christians seek to provide our culture with at Christmas time is an invitation to find all these things through participation in a faith community, a church. We invite people to belong to a community of people formed through the love of God; our common purpose is to praise and worship God in a variety of ways – we know who we are and why we are here; we tell stories of our redemption in Jesus each week and we experience transcendence in our worship, our buildings in our world view, our faith. Church communities are places full of meaning. They offer, at their best, anyone who seeks it, the opportunity to come ‘home’: to be part of an accepting and loving family. 

As Christians we have experienced where true meaning and life in all its fullness can be found. The demands of Christian witness are that we get much better at describing, valuing and communicating that which can’t be commodified. We give and receive presents: yes; we see family and friends, eat too much: yes, but much more importantly we gather together to worship God. For it is God and God alone who sets us free. He tells us who we are and for what we are made. It is in God that we find a fulfillment that does not disappoint; he is the end of all our desiring- the rest which quietens our restlessness- the peace that the world cannot give.

As St Augustine wrote:

“You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in you.”