Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] I'm Chuck Allen, and welcome to the weekday podcast on this wondrous Christmas Eve day.
[00:00:14] I join many of you in just thinking it's finally here because there's something special about this day, about tonight. It's quieter somehow. Even in this noisy world, it's a bit quieter. There's a sense that heaven is leaning into this space of ours for a few breaths, right here, right now. It's like time pauses and we remember something happened, something so small and so strange that it keeps echoing all the way into our lives.
[00:00:46] Luke tells it like this in the message about that time, Caesar Augustus ordered a census. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for.
[00:00:57] So Joseph went from Nazareth to Bethlehem with Mary, his fiance, who was pregnant. While they were there, the time came and she gave birth to a son, wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger because there was no room in the hostel.
[00:01:12] And that's how the story starts. Not in a palace, not on a mountaintop, but in a stable that smelled like animals and hay.
[00:01:19] The time came. Luke says that one phrase ought to stop us, because every one of us knows about waiting, right?
[00:01:28] You wait for the call back, for the test results, for the relationship to heal, for the world to make sense again. And then it says, the time came at that exact right moment, not one second too early or too late. God's rescue plan took its first breath right here, where no one was looking. And then Luke says there were shepherds camping in the neighborhood.
[00:01:50] They had set night watches over their sheep. And suddenly God's angel stood among them. And God's glory blazed around them. And they were terrified.
[00:01:59] Well, of course they were. They're working in the night shift, forgotten workers that are keeping things alive. And suddenly the sky lights up and the angel says, don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that means for everybody worldwide, a savior has just been born, a rescuer, a and you will find him wrapped in a blanket, lying in a manger. You'll find him not in power or influence or certainty. You'll find him among the ordinary and the small and the overlooked. I think that's still true in our lives on this Christmas Eve. You won't find Jesus where everything is perfect. You'll find him where you least expect it, in the tension, in the fatigue, in that challenging conversation. He's there already born, already shining.
[00:02:45] John's gospel says it this way. In the message, the life light was the real thing. Every person entering life, he brings into light. He was in the world. The world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn't want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed he made to be their true selves, their child of God selves, the Word became flesh and blood.
[00:03:13] And they moved into the neighborhood. Jesus moved into the neighborhood.
[00:03:18] The neighborhood. Not a fancy land, not. Not some spiritual postcode where only the, you know, saintly live. Your neighborhood, my neighborhood. Messy, complicated, too busy and half awake neighborhoods. That's this life. That's where God moved in in the form of Jesus. Emmanuel.
[00:03:37] So maybe that's what Christmas Eve really is. The reminder that God comes close. Not when you've got it all together, but when you finally realize you don't. Maybe that's why the angels told the shepherds, don't be afraid.
[00:03:50] Because the real miracle of Christmas is not that there's a baby in a manger, it's that you are seen, you are heard, you are known, and you are loved so deeply that God refused to stay distant.
[00:04:04] Right now, wherever you're listening from, that same light that broke into Bethlehem is finding you. And it doesn't need perfection. It just needs your permission.
[00:04:15] So maybe today, before the wrapping paper and the noise, take 60 seconds, turn off your screen, light a candle, close your eyes and pray something so simple that it might sound like God. Thank you for moving into my neighborhood. Thank you for not staying far away.
[00:04:30] Tonight in the quiet, I welcome your light into my darkness.
[00:04:35] Be born in me again, friend. Listen. Love keeps moving in light keeps finding its way.
[00:04:42] And wherever you are tonight, that light is finding you.
[00:04:46] Merry Christmas, friends. Thanks for listening to the weekday podcast Grace and Peace. And may the light shine bright in your neighborhood through him today and tonight. Have a great Christmas. Bye bye.
