Emmanuel, God With Us
...an essay on Jesus and joy
I sat down to write some kind of diatribe on how “hard” the year has been. And I could. In the past week I’ve had friends tell me about miscarriages, depression diagnoses, and broken relationships. We’re all tired and crabby. And everywhere I look online, people are proclaiming the difficulties of the year. Yes, life feels particularly heavy right now, probably due to our constant intake of information and completely flailing political discourse. Or maybe because we’re alive and life’s just hard. I don’t know.
It gets tiring, doesn’t it? All of this heavy sadness. I want to look back on moments of joy, too, because they were there. In a snapshot of my daughter licking the cookie dough off a spoon and the way my five year old gleefully jumps into my arms every single day when he gets off the bus, as if it’s been eight days instead of eight hours. God is in the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree and the forgiveness we extend to each other over, and over, and over.
I don’t want to write a scathing sobfest, even though it would probably feel cathartic and is what some of us think we need. I’m shaking off what has begun to feel like a constant need: to look over my shoulder and make sure everyone’s okay, everyone’s doing fine. You may not be doing fine at all! I can’t possibly acknowledge every single person’s heartache. So instead of doing that, I’m going to remind you something.
Jesus is real.
My first year as a FOCUS missionary, a friend and I would constantly say that in our crumbling, cockroach-infested apartment. Anytime something bad was happening, be it a mouse chewing through our pantry door (seriously, that slumlord should be in jail) or a student sending me a three-paragraph text on how my bad advice had ruined her life. Jesus is real. Not to be dismissive. Not to ignore the pain and slap a band-aid on it.
But because it’s freaking true.
It may feel like a pile of Christian-ese bullshit, but it’s not. It’s the truth.
Emmanuel: From Hebrew, ʿimmānū'ēl
“God is with us”
As we turn the corner from Advent to Christmas, I’m finding the deepest yearning in my heart to just…celebrate.
God is with us! That’s the good news. The good news isn’t a political revolution or our problems being smoothed away or getting our shit together. GOD is the good news. The miracles and the joyful endorphins we snatch up at praise + worship events are just icing on the cake. The good news is that God became man to take on our sins and, in doing so, buy our eternal freedom with his blood. I mean, damn.
I’ve been there, friend. I’ve sat in that car, parked in my garage, sobbing my eyes out, asking God where the hell he is. But he was there. He’s here, now.
God with us doesn’t mean that he’s going to take our problems away.
God with us doesn’t mean that life is going to be a smooth path.
God with us doesn’t mean we are right, or that anyone’s going to listen to us.
Related: Joy with Gloria Purvis
I can’t shut up about the Bible in a Year podcast because it was just exactly what my heart needed this year. (It’s funny how God can sometimes just hand you exactly what you need when you don’t know what it is you need—that podcast + the pilgrimage both did a number on my heart in 2021, and I never could have predicted that). Through hearing scripture in my ear every day, I was constantly reminded by how simultaneously small + large God’s promises are. Paul just casually lists all of the times he’s been beaten. The nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, are constantly exiled and defeated and enslaved. Jesus himself has this bloody, horrendous death.
And still, God is with us. He never abandons his people or shuts his eyes to them.
He promises us nothing and everything, simultaneously.
The hardest part about God to me is the fact that I can occasionally wonder why he isn’t rescuing me from my suffering, which can sometimes feel immense. (I’m so tempted to add a line in here about my privileged life but I refuse to; suffering is suffering.) If I saw my kids suffering like that, I would do anything to swoop in and take their suffering away.
But…didn't he? Didn’t he send his son to be crucified on my behalf? And when that human son asked him to take the cup away, he didn’t. He allowed the suffering for healing to burst forth like a glorious, gory mess.
I remember the first time I heard the quote “There’s nowhere you can go that God won’t be” and thinking it was kind of creepy. Like, there’s just this floating spirit following me around? But these days, it brings me the most immense comfort. God is there, in boardrooms and bedrooms. God is there in soup kitchens and school cafeterias. God is there no matter my mood or temperament. God is in all of the dark, crooked spaces. He’s there in the light of my daughter twirling around in her St. Lucia dress. God’s at Target. God’s in this coffee shop. God’s in the mess, redeeming it, allowing me to laugh at the cockroaches and pull through the pain. Emma Goldman, the famous activist, said that “if I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution”. My Christianity refuses to be one of complete sorrow and destruction because y’all: Jesus is some goooood news.
I saw a tweet the other day (because all of the worst takes take place on Twitter!) complaining about people singing + rejoicing at the end of The Christmas Carol when Scrooge sees the error of his ways and turns towards goodness. That they shouldn’t be celebrating “just because someone started practicing basic human decency.” You fool, I wanted to shout, till I remembered God said something or other about name-calling sending people to the fires of hell. You missed it! You missed the whole entire point. When someone turns from darkness to light, we should be shouting from the rooftops and welcoming them with open arms. Isn’t basic human decency a miracle in and of itself?
Claiming a deep joy in Jesus isn’t just allowed, it’s promised.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:11
Our joy can be complete, even surrounded by roaches in a nasty New Orleans apartment, because Jesus is real. And we’re celebrating the birth of our king this month. You can light the candles and sing the hymns and unlock that tiny, bold flame of happiness that’s always so dang close to being snuffed out.
Related: A Complete Joy
So over the next couple of weeks, I encourage you to find small, tangible ways to make that joy of Christ loud + abundant. In the glory of a perfectly wrapped gift or a sugar cookie, in the beauty of Silent Night and an exuberant Christmas morning—God is with us. Amen.
On My Nightstand
Here are some things I’ve been reading lately that have made me think!
A Grand Yuletide Theory: The Muppet Christmas Carol is the Best Adaption of The Christmas Carol: YES.
The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: OK, fine! I like the book too. I re-read The Christmas Carol most years (it’s very short!) and every year something different sticks out to me. This year, I’m just so into Dickens’ setting descriptions from a craft perspective. He’s such a master at painting a snowy, blustery day on the streets of Victorian England.
The Polarization Spiral: This is part of the published-online follow-up to The Coddling of the American Mind, which I think should be required reading for every citizen. It’s a great piece on how the far right and far left feed into each other to essentially create a monster of horror. “At first many thought this viral sharing could be a good thing for democracy, especially after a Facebook page in 2011 helped to start a revolution in Egypt that brought down a corrupt and brutal dictator in just a few weeks. But the rapid increase in public expressions of outrage—not just at murderous dictators but at young adult fiction writers, people who accidentally make the ‘OK’ sign, fellow employees, fellow students who said something, professors who said something—at pretty much anyone at any time for almost any reason—this was the planetary change.”
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Learn more about my books:
Girl, Arise: A Catholic Feminist’s Invitation to Live Boldly, Love Your Faith and Change the World
In Full Bloom: Finding the Grit and Grace to Thrive Wherever You’re Planted
In case you missed these Letters:
The Outrage Economy - for subscribers
To Lament + Reconcile - for everyone
Answering Questions About Purity Culture + Pronouns - for subscribers
I logged off much of the holidays, so I'm just catching up now. But I felt compelled to comment because:
1. A Muppet Christmas Carol is far and away the best adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and the fact that Disney+ cuts Belle's "When Love Is Gone" is a tragedy. (I make my family pause it so that we can watch it on YouTube.)
2. The rejoicing of when Scrooge becomes a decent human is like the rejoicing of the prodigal son returning! Of course it's a cause for celebration! People saying otherwise kind of sound like Scrooges themselves. Humbug. Scrooge becoming a decent human means so much for every one of his tenants, and everyone that he can help with his money.
My mom has this theory that Satan attacks those that can do the most good the hardest. That is why money corrupts, why power corrupts, why the Church is so often attacked from both within and without. Scrooge, a powerful man, would have been plagued by Satan. The fact that he overcame it, with the help of the Holy Spirit (aka the Ghosts of Christmas), is a miracle. I don't always believe in my mom's theory, but considering it helps me to have a lot more grace towards people that I might otherwise hold a lot of animosity towards (mainly politicians, but also certain Church leaders, priests, and rich folks.)
Merry Christmas, Claire. Thank you so much for this newsletter. It has helped with my faith so much this year. I'm in an incredibly small, protestant town. My family are some of the youngest at Church. Having this letter reminds me of my ministry days, being able to nerd out or rage or laugh in understanding over the many beauties of our faith. My soul has desperately missed that, and I appreciate you providing it through these letters. I'm hoping if you ever do a retreat, or another pilgrimage, I will be able to join you even if just to thank you in person.
Much of Advent this year felt like a slog. But I doubled down and did more and reached deeper and over the last week, not that I deserve it in any way, there has been a slow awakening in my heart and the Sun dawned yesterday and the following words began repeating over and over in my head, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Your post today underlined and added to my awakening. Merry Christmas Claire - Have a wonderful and joyful holiday!