We have come, in our fellowship, to discount the religious significance of Christmas. Because we reject the mass as unscriptural. Because the date was set by a pagan holiday and is not even close to the date of Christ's birth. But I wonder if we've missed something along the way?

You see, while we, during the Christmas season, often say that we should remember Christ's birth throughout the year, I rarely do. And while we often say that the emphasis in the epistles is on Christ's death and resurrection and not on his birth, I think we have overlooked an important part of the story of God.

Would God, in his infinite wisdom, spend so much time in the Gospels discussing the birth of Jesus if it weren't important to us? More words in Scripture are devoted the events surrounding Christ's birth than to the Lord's Supper! It was the event that God's people had prayed for and longed after for centuries. Can we be so sure that our glib rebuttals of its importance are really what God desires?

Perhaps it is in our fervor to avoid any hint of error that we sometimes forget the power of this story.

It is not simply the story of the birth of a baby. It is not the story of a young couple undergoing emotional trails and physical threat and harsh treatment simply to fulfill prophecy.

It is the amazing story of how the very God who first knit together the seams of the universe walked among us.

It is the incredible tale of the Father of all things being born in a stable.

It is the One True Myth of how our Creator entered his creation as a helpless little baby.

Immanuel. God with us. I am reminded of those people Jesus touched while in the flesh:

• Joseph and Mary, alone on that night of census, gazing at each other across that bed of straw and thinking, God is now among us;

• the teachers at the Jerusalem temple, twelve years later, who handed the child back to His worried parents then buzzed among themselves, God Himself was here teaching us;

• the disciples, walking together down the dusty road with their master thinking, with amazement, God is walking here alongside us!;

• the woman at the well, the one with the past she'd rather keep to herself, telling others, God was right there, telling me my own history!;

• Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, being transformed and thinking, Only God Himself could have such understanding;

• and the Roman centurian, standing in the shadow of that awful cross and the dead Jesus thinking, God was here with us.

Emmanuel, Emmanuel, His name is called Emmanuel.
God with us, revealed in us;
His name is called, Emmanuel.
(Bob McGee, #134 in The Hymnal for Worship & Celebration (WORD, 1986)

"Do not be afraid.
I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.
Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you.
He is Christ, the Lord."
-Luke 2:10b-11

Let us, along with those who were blessed to see Him in flesh, consider the many ways that God is, indeed with us.

It is a story filled with the angels of heaven visiting shepherds. And of a young couple bearing a responsibility that none of us can ever understand. It is a story of old men weeping with joy and angry kings seeking vengeance in the blood of a child.

But, most of all, it is the story of a God who loved us so much that even the splendours of heaven couldn't keep him from us.

And while the frenzy of relatives and gifts and decorations battle for our attention, take a moment or two to reflect on the gift God gave in himself. And this year, let's live up to our words to remember it everyday.