“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.'” Matthew 1:23

It definitely wasn’t a Hallmark movie. The Christmas story of the Bible was filled with pain, vulnerability, and, likely, smelly animals.

When they arrived in Bethlehem, Joseph could probably do little more for his laboring wife than to find clean straw for her to rest on. And Mary, without her mother or midwife familiar to her, endured the agony of labor with the scent of manure hanging in the air.  We could easily imagine them filled with anxiety.

Was this the way the Messiah, the Savior of all mankind, was to come? Had they misunderstood? Where was God? Elisabeth Elliot observed: “There was nowhere to lean except the Everlasting Arms [but] they had God’s word, specially delivered by the angel Gabriel. Weak things, lowly things, painful things, silent things—the instinct of their faith told them God was in all of them…God had given them His Word. Therefore, they moved trustfully, quietly through each moment, God being in charge, God being in that moment.”[1]

Would we have trusted at a moment like that? 

The shockingly humble beginning of Jesus’s life here on earth wasn’t what we would expect for the birth of the King of Kings.  But “…when God’s order is the reverse of what we would expect…He is in each moment, in us, with us, as He is with the Holy Couple.”[2]

When life doesn’t bring what we expect, He is Immanuel, God with us and with each Christ follower in every moment.  May His presence bring real joy this Christmas.

[1] Elliot, Elisabeth. “God in Each Moment.” Secure in the Everlasting Arms: Trusting the God Who Never Leaves Your Side, Revell, Grand Rapids, MI, 2020, pp. 150–151.

[2] Ibid.