The first Christmas was not a magical holiday homecoming story full of family turkey dinners, carol singing and football games. It did not involve decorating trees, baking cookies and opening wrapped gifts. Rather, the first Christmas is a refugee story. It tells of a young, poor, homeless asylum-seeking couple who fearfully flee their country and become residents in a foreign land in order to save their child’s life.
Yet, this story is also a story of hope. In the midst of this violent and fearful event, God shows up in the flesh, not as a king who has worldly power, but as one of the marginalized. God shows up in the flesh in a dirty stable, as a vulnerable baby, to a terrified young homeless couple on the margins of society.
It is this God in the flesh – this Immanuel, “God with us” – who will come to bring good news to the poor, give release to the captives, bring sight to the blind and let the oppressed go free and who calls his followers to do the same.
This message is excerpted from “A God who shows up” by Emily Heitzman in the December 2021 Café online magazine. Today is Christmas Eve.
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