Christmas Distilled

Christmas. If you could distill it to its most basic element, it’s about God coming to us. In fact the traditional word for this season is Advent, from the Latin word for just that, for coming. And the message in this is that God came to rescue us when it would have been far easier, and certainly less painful, for Him to have remained in Heaven, aloof and separated from the tragic mess we’d made of our world.

But God so loved us that He gave His only Son to save us from the consequences of our bad decisions. And He told Joseph and Mary, “Call Him Jesus”, a name which is literally translated as “Rescuer,” because He came to seek and save – deliver – those who were lost.

And sometimes we still feel lost today, and not only in the eternal sense, because we can still make bad decisions or fall into misfortune even after we’ve been born again. But the thing to remember when this happens is that He still comes, every time we need Him, to rescue us.

So no matter what you’re facing at this moment, keep in mind that He’s on His way to you. His appearance may take the form of a friend or relative, or even a sudden twist of fate. If needed, His intervention will be miraculous; after all, when His disciples were caught in a storm, He came walking to them walking on the water, which proves to us that He’ll do whatever it takes to arrive on the scene and save His own.

And since you’re His own, He’ll come to you too, to still your storm and to get you to the other side of this. He’s coming to save you, and you can count on that, because He’s The Rescuer. That’s His name. It’s who He is. It’s what He does.