Love With Skin on It: A Street Psalms Advent DevotionalSample

Joy is the purest form of gratitude, and gratitude is the most genuine gift we can give to God. The secret of our salvation lies in Jesus who is the joy of our desiring. Joy is at the heart of things hidden since the foundation of the earth (Matt. 13:35). Today (Christmas) we celebrate that revelation. We are living inside a great mystery. We are already inside the joy that we so desperately long for—the joy of our salvation. Yes, this is the miracle we celebrate today.

Joy can be noticed, celebrated, honored, enjoyed, or even refused, but it cannot be had or possessed. It is not an object. It is the subject and the secret of our life in Christ. All attempts to own it will prove impossible, and our attempt to do the impossible is damnation, is hell!

Christmas is the reminder that joy is not so much in us, as we are in it. The One who is born to us, gives birth to us, and turns out to be the One in whom we move and have our being. As the scriptures affirm, we are “in Christ” and “Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11).

Seeing and celebrating Jesus at Christmas is like seeing the Milky Way galaxy on a clear night. We are looking at something as though it were a reality outside of us when, in fact, we are on the inside of that which we are seeing. This is the miracle we celebrate today! We are looking at the life that is hidden to us and in us. We are on the inside of that which we long for—Immanuel, God with us.

Until we come to see ourselves within God’s joy, who is Jesus, we will forever be trying to manufacture our own—and doing so at great cost to ourselves and those around us. In this light, we consider the words of William Blake:

He who bends to himself a joy



doth the winged life destroy



but he who kisses the joy as it flies



lives in eternity’s sunrise