The Threshold of Joy
It was night, but they dared not sleep
In the starlit darkness, they watched
The wind caught the sound of their sheep
Resting as though the world were at peace
These soul-weary shepherds all wondered
Would the blind ever see once more?
Would the deaf ear ever open?
Would a broken body ever leap with joy?
Would the mute ever sing a song?
We wait like shepherds for heralds
Watching for bright angels in the dark
Whose voices our despair destroy
We stand in the threshold of joy
—eric h Janzen
In Matthew 11, John the Baptist sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the One. John is part of a long tradition of prophets who have carried the burden of waiting for the Messiah’s arrival. It has been so long, and so agonizing, that while hopeful, Jesus is the One, he can’t allow himself the joy of fully believing it lest his heart be broken. Jesus, a fellow prophet, does not answer straightforwardly, such as: “Yep, tell him I am indeed the One.” That’s not the way prophets talk to each other.
Instead, Jesus gives John a far more profound confirmation: he sends the message that he is the long-awaited One because he is fulfilling prophecy.After Jesus had finished instructing His twelve disciples, He went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. Meanwhile, John heard in prison about the works of Christ, and he sent his disciples to ask Him, “Are You the One who was to come, or should we look for someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the one who does not fall away on account of Me.
—Matt 11:2-5
It’s one thing to say you’re the Messiah and quite another to show that you are the messiah because of what you are doing. In fiction writing, we call this the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule. Showing who you are is far more powerful than telling someone who you are. John the Baptist’s life ends tragically in a brutal, callous murder. Yet, John had stood in the threshold of joy and walked all the way in. Jesus was the One, and John understood what that meant on a deep, prophetic level.
It can be easy to overlook the intense prophetic layer of the gospel, but it is here in this prophetic underpinning of who Jesus is that joy has its roots, where it grows, and from where it abruptly springs to life again and again. Why does Jesus’ message to John answer his question about who Jesus is in such a precise fashion? And what does it reveal about what God is like?
The blind are healed, and they see
The physically disabled are healed, and they walk
The sick are healed and made healthy
Deaf ears are opened, and they can hear
The dead are raised—decay itself is being overcome
The poor are being given good news
Jesus is doing these things. He isn’t just talking about them. His miracles are awe-inspiring to this day. Imagine the joy around Jesus as people who have lived with suffering, being overlooked, being marginalized and oppressed are so incredibly blessed by the supernatural acts and words of Jesus.
John the Baptist’s joy is completed because he sees all of this through the lens of a prophet. He knows these are the signs of the awaited joy. His fellow prophets looked forward to the day John had the joy of seeing. John knows what he was supposed to look for in the One because prophets like Isaiah told him what the signs would be.
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then the lame will leap like a deer
and the mute tongue will shout for joy.
For waters will gush forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert.
The parched ground will become a pool,
the thirsty land springs of water.
In the haunt where jackals once lay,
there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.
—Isa 35:5-7
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me,
because the LORD has anointed Me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and freedom to the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of our God’s vengeance,
to comfort all who mourn,
to console the mourners in Zion—
to give them a crown of beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning,
and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair.
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.
—Isa 61:1-3
Again and again throughout the prophetic anticipation, what Jesus is doing reveals he is the one all the prophets were looking forward to (in both senses of the word). Everlasting joy is what Christ’s arrival inaugurates for humanity. His incarnation, from the moment he is born as a fragile infant, begins a cosmic transformation that altered, alters, and will alter humanity’s story forever. John the Baptist was the prophet who saw the waiting come to an end. His joy must have been overflowing even as he faced the dread of his senseless death. In some ways, John the Baptist is the first of us who faced the tension of a kingdom that is present in part but not yet in its fullness.
Waiting…
Yet we are waiting, aren’t we?
In my own small gift of prophetic imagination, I see this as standing in the threshold of joy. It would take any one of us only a few moments to dampen any glimmer of joy others have. There is much in our world and in our lives that swoops in like hungry birds to eat what fruit we have. Or to steal the good seed that needed more time to take root.
However, let us remember the doorway we stand in. To be in the threshold means to be in that place between arriving and having arrived. This is the prophetic ground of the kingdom of heaven where this doorway of everlasting joy stands open and full of light, overwhelming and transforming darkness. Too often, we think in binary terms—it’s either full joy or full despair. The kingdom of God is not like that. The kingdom is always arriving—and will fully arrive. This means that the joy of Christ is present now—in fact, it never dries up because it is always arriving. The Spirit within us is the assuring voice that speaks to the prophetic reality of the everlasting joy—that not only will be—but is being established now.
What is to be is arriving and what is arriving is what will be.
As we consider the joy of Advent, we normally think of it as a way to remember the story of Jesus’ birth, the beginning of his incarnate presence. We join those who lived in that moment so many centuries ago and celebrate the momentous beginning. Be joyful! Christ is born! Our salvation has come! Amen. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this. However, there is something even deeper for us now—in our present—for Christ has ascended and the Spirit now dwells within us. The joyful presence of the kingdom is in our midst, and it stirs up hope, peace, and joy when they are least expected.
The joy of Advent is a memory that moves through time in a way that does not respect time. We commemorate the joy of Mary and Joseph, the Shepherds, the Magi, and John the Baptist, to name a few. Yet, we may treat memory in a mysterious, time-defying way. The joy of Advent is a prophetic sign of what the fullness of joy will be. The kingdom and the joy inherent within it are always arriving. We are, in a sense, remembering what the future will be—bearing witness to what we intuitively know. Also, when we, in our brokenness, our pain, our doubt, our anxiety, our suffering, allow the stirring of Christ’s joy—which may seem out of place, counter to how we “should” be—we become embodied prophetic signs pointing to the fullness of what lies imminently through the threshold.
This threshold is not just one of joy, though. All the promises and goodness of God in Christ are here. The light in the darkness shines brightly in the threshold. It pours out compassion, mercy, hope, joy, peace, healing, comfort, and a love that no language on earth can accurately describe because this love is divine and defies definition or limitations. The darkness whispering at our back is a desperate lie seeking to hold on to “how it used to be” as though all of our anguish, pain, despair, and fear were disturbingly “great” attributes of some mythical golden age. The decay of Death has been bound with it forever. Why return to something that can only exist as a phantom? Stand in the threshold of the kingdom and begin receiving and becoming now what you will one day fully be. This is a life that is abundant, strange, and mysterious, for it will defy the illusory decay offered to it at every turn. This is the Spirit of life at work, showing us through our prophetic imagination that Christ has overcome the powerless phantoms. The Spirit fires our spiritual imaginations so that we can taste and see what we cannot otherwise: we are already experiencing the wonders of the age to come—in part, yes—yet being filled with the hope of the fullness tangibly. This is a tension we all live in, and it can be difficult to keep facing forward at the threshold of this doorway. Rest assured, you cannot be snatched out of this place. This is sacred ground where no power in heaven or on earth can close the door and push you backwards.
The joy of God is for you now, today, this moment, every moment that follows and reveals to you the truth about the age to come: it will be everlasting joy. We are talking about something far deeper than happiness here. Joy is the strength that overcomes all that would trample us down and leave us in everlasting despair. Christ has had the last word on this: We stand in the threshold of joy, and we can only move in one direction: forward into the endless, infinite mystery of the joy of God being shared with us.
Emmanuel,
Merry Christmas.