Emmanuel.

he arrived in a drafty barn in a one-light town in the middle of nowhere.

and though he was Divinity, the angel bypassed the priestly and the royal, the influential and the prominent, and heralded this God-Son's birth to a handful of flea-bitten guys in the hills far enough out of town that no one had to smell them.

God comes to the rejects and the nobodies, the stumbling and the hopeless. God comes to me.

he comes when we've scraped rock-bottom, desperate for mercy; he shows up on the spot and grace floods so fierce that it cannot be kept to ourselves.

he wraps the shaking in thick coats, visits hospital rooms, sets orphans in families. he comes to us so he can show up through us.


the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. [luke 4.18&19]


God comes. and our hearts weep with relief, kindle bright with joy.