In your presence is abundant joy.
-Psalm 16:11

This is the truth. There is abundant, complete joy in your presence, God.

I once heard someone, maybe it was Anne Lamott, say that she writes to know what she thinks. I get that, because right here at the end of my Advent writing, right here when I am telling you that the final thing is the best thing because the final thing is complete joy, we received some news from a friend that isn’t joyful at all. It’s horrible. So, what I started to write was that it’s true about there being abundant joy in his presence, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like joy. As I wrote that, though, it occurred to me that’s not what I really think. What I really think is that sometimes it just doesn’t feel like we have his presence at all.

Read:

But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
See, the virgin will become pregnant
and give birth to a son,
and they will name him Immanuel,
which is translated “God is with us.”
-Matthew 1:20-23

What was spoken through the prophet, what they had waited for was finally a reality in a way they never could have imagined! At last, joy!!

Immanuel. God us with us.

Not “with us” like, on the same page.
Not “with us” like, on our side of an argument.
Not “with us” like, tuned in to our live-stream.

No, “with us” like, here. Immanent. Present. Covered in the same dirt. Drenched in the same rain. Breathing the same air.

I was looking at the complete list of prepositions, and I realized that almost all of them apply to how God is with us. Around, beside, over, under, in, through. The preposition that made me pause while I was scanning the list was “between.” I wondered, “Jesus, how are you between us?”

Preparing to write this last Advent post, I was asking God to show me a illustration of what it looks like for Jesus to be with us. Every night when my son goes to bed we read out of a chronological illustrated Bible. As it happened, tonight we were at the story was Jesus’ crucifixion. The illustrations are graphic enough to capture the brutality of His torture without causing nightmares. One frame arrested me in mid-sentence to the point that tears welled up in my eyes, and I had to pause reading to collect myself. Limp and mangled, there was Jesus, Immanuel, hanging on the cross…between.

One criminal on the right. One criminal on the left. God is With Us in between.

One criminal rejected him. One criminal received him. And the question popped in to my mind: Would the criminal who received him, even as he was suffering the agony of his own crucifixion, agree with the psalmist? Would he say, even if it was between tormented cries, that in Jesus’ presence he had abundant joy? The criminal who was being punished for crimes he did commit was lifted up on his cross with no hope for his future and met a man beside him, suffering the same torment. What if Jesus hadn’t been hanging between the two thieves, but instead was on the ground below him. What if Jesus, neat and tidy and unafflicted, offered the criminal the same hope of paradise on the other side of his death sentence. Do you think he would have taken it? I don’t. The fact that Jesus was with him made the difference.

Jesus essentially said to him, “After I hang on this cross with you, you will be with me in paradise. I’ll stay here with you for a moment so that you can come stay with me forever.”

For those who receive him, even in the middle of suffering and pain, in his presence there is abundant joy.

For Mary, for Joseph, for the shepherds, for the wise men, for the disciples, for the woman caught in adultery, for Lazarus, for Jairus, for Bartamaeus, for the Samaritan woman, for me.

For you.

Abundant joy because he is with us even now by his Spirit!

It’s not only a future joy, either. It’s a now joy. We get to taste joy now. Right this minute, even between tormented cries, we have abundant joy because of his presence. This momentary and light affliction will produce a weight of glory, unimaginable joy, that these sin-polluted bodies could not yet bear. The one who is with us in the grief of this life is the only one who makes suffering produce something eternal and glorious.

God dwelled with us in flesh in Jesus, and in just a little while, Jesus will come again. When he does, the mega joy the angels announced at his birth will be fully experienced. Spend a few moments imagining that.

At last, joy!!

Pray: Jesus, I don’t pretend to understand it, but right this minute, in my heaviness and hurt, you are with me. You aren’t with me in the same way as when you walked here bodily, but with me in a better way by your Spirit. Your with-ness has no physical limitations, no boundaries that prevent your nearness from being pervasive. Help me see you when it seems like you aren’t there. Help me recognize your abundant joy now even as I wait for the fullness of it kept in your timeless habitation. You are here. Immanuel.
Hallelujah!

Merry Christmas, friends.