For many, Christmas can’t come soon enough. Anticipated for weeks, it arrives in a cascade of celebration, the culmination of planning and preparation—bright with color, ringing with laughter, and brimming with the cheer that defines the season.
For others, though, Christmas comes quietly, even painfully—not with jingle bells or bright hues, but with whispers of what might have been and shadows of what is no longer. For those who ache, who grieve, who yearn, the season often elicits heartache—tears falling against a backdrop of twinkling lights, loss and loneliness standing in stark contrast to the revelry all around.
Yet at its heart, Christmas isn’t about presents or parties or wishlists. It is about Presence—God stepping into our brokenness. The Incarnation—the miracle of God becoming flesh—isn’t a story of pageantry or palaces or untroubled joy.
It is the story of a weary couple, a crude stable, and a child born into a world aching for redemption—a world fractured by sin and sorrow, burdened by injustice, and longing for hope.
To a people who were weary of waiting and desperate for healing, every tear, every cry, and every act of love pointed to the restoration and fulfillment of promises yet to come.
Those hopes were met in Jesus Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, the One whose birth we now celebrate.
Because of Jesus, God understands our pain. Because of Jesus, He knows what it is to be tired, to be hungry, to be afraid. He speaks fluently the language of the suffering. Only a God who has known suffering can rescue us in our own, and He fully immersed Himself. Absorbing the entire spectrum of pain, betrayal, and degradation, He partook.
Willingly.
Completely.
He drank the cup to the dregs, sparing Himself nothing, to spare us everything.
In the cry of an infant, in the tears shed at the grave of Lazarus, in the agony of Gethsemane and the torment of Calvary that followed, God has walked our path. He has felt our sorrow. He is acquainted with our grief.
For those of us living between the now of our sorrow and the not-yet of the restoration to come, Christmas offers this quiet, unshakable truth:
Emmanuel. God with us.
Jesus is here, beloved. There is no circumstance, season, or place where He is not. And when we follow Him, our lives always mean more than we think they do.
Wherever a cool drink of water is given in His name, He is there.
Wherever grace is extended or forgiveness offered, He is there.
Wherever tears stream or laughter rings, He is there.
In every celebration and every loss, in joy and in sorrow, He is there.
Even when we don’t sense Him: He is there.
In our sin, our pain, our grief, our joy, our adversity—in places lowly or lofty, perilous or peaceful, shattered or serene—He is there: Transfiguring our brokenness. Reconciling us to the Father. Redeeming all that threatens our joy.
He is the answer, no matter the question; the solution, no matter the problem. He is the filler of every vacant space, as close as a breath, no further than the whisper of His name.
So, come O come, Emmanuel. Our hearts prepare You room. Meet us today, wherever we are.
Lift our heads. Cup our faces. Dry our tears.
Remind us:
That You alone are the object of our deepest longings—the remedy for all that is not yet as it will one day be.
Our Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace.
Our Savior.
Welcome.
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
~ 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝟏:𝟏𝟒