Charlotte airport arrivals, Tuesday, almost midnight. My 3-year-old grandson Simon hasn\u2019t seen me for four months. Pushed in his stroller around a corner, he notices me. His face lights up. Breaking into a huge smile, he cries out, \u201cPapa!\u201d He laughs and snuggles up against me.<\/p>\n
I am near tears (a not uncommon occurrence these days!). Seeing me, Simon rejoices exceedingly with great joy.<\/p>\n
Matthew uses those words to describe the wise men\u2019s reaction when the star leads them to the infant King (Matthew 2:10). They have traveled far to worship Him, and they rejoice to see Him at long last.\u00a0 Similarly, the angel tells the shepherds \u201cgood news of great joy\u201d \u2013 their Savior is born, and they can see Him nearby, in Bethlehem (Luke 2:10).<\/p>\n
In our present age, we do not yet have the joy of seeing Jesus in person. Yet we do have joy \u2013 just as Simon eagerly anticipated seeing Beth and me when his parents told him weeks ago about the upcoming trip. But then, upon their arrival, Simon’s joy seeing us face to face both fulfilled and surpassed the joy of that eager expectation.<\/p>\n
Peter describes this present joy: \u201cThough you have not seen [Jesus], you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8).<\/p>\n
But this state of joyful expectation is temporary. Jesus will return. Our joy will be full. We will break into huge smiles and laugh. We will see Him face to face. We will see in that face the complete acceptance made possible by His sacrifice during His incarnation, the deep love that prompted that sacrifice, and His pure delight in welcoming us into His family forever.<\/p>\n
This Christmas remember the \u201cwonders of His love.\u201d See this Jesus as your Savior, your King, your Treasure. And long to see Him face to face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charlotte airport arrivals, Tuesday, almost midnight. My 3-year-old grandson Simon hasn\u2019t seen me for four months. Pushed in his stroller around a corner, he notices me. His face lights up.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,17],"tags":[2452,90,296,2455,856,2454,2453,1409,2456,1446,2451,2450],"class_list":["post-3113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-devotions","category-family","tag-1-peter-18","tag-acceptance","tag-christmas","tag-gods-family","tag-joy","tag-luke-210","tag-matthew-210","tag-second-coming","tag-see-him-face-to-face","tag-shepherds","tag-wise-men","tag-wonders-of-his-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3115,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3113\/revisions\/3115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}