The Best Two Words of the Christmas Season

It came upon a midnight clear...

"AND SUDDENLY..."

Those two words - the "and-suddenly" - of Luke 2:13.

Those are the two best words of the Christmas story!

At least they were for the shepherds;

and, they should be for you and I as we linger in Advent, meditating on the story of our lives, and how the Savior loves to collide with them in miraculous ways.

Paul David Tripp said it best in his Wednesday Word yesterday. The Christmas Story is all about "glory colliding with tragedy."

It is...

(...and, really, so is the Easter Story.)

In a split second the lives of these simple men were changed.

Actually, their lives were much more complicated.

Troubled, in fact.

If you were a shepherd, you were despised, even by the normal, poorer folk of the day.

Townspeople would have nothing to do with you.

You weren't invited out for coffee.

The local synagogue shut its doors in your face.

You were at the bottom of the social ladder.

Even dung sweepers in the city streets received more favor than you.

Shepherds only hung out with...well...other shepherds....and sheep.

Shepherds were lonely, rejected, devalued, dishonored, shunned, excluded...

They had no rights...even a court of law turned them away.

Hence, their stories were NOT destined to happy Hallmark endings, magical turn-arounds, or change...

And suddenly!

And-suddenly; God released the angels to introduce His Son to the world.

And-suddenly; Heaven touched earth on a hillside to the most marginalized people in the Middle Eastern world.

And-suddenly; their lives did a 180-degree turn around.

The entire view of their world lit up with possibility.

The possibility of redemption and reconciliation.

The possibility of living in the light, no longer hidden in darkness.

And-suddenly, the night a tiny baby came into the world, and the angels split the quiet of the hillside, they stepped out of their others-given-identity into the LIGHT of new-life.

You and I need the reminder of the "and-suddenly."

We may be facing some hard-stuff.

Life may be troubled.

We may feel just like the shepherds: marginalized, unaccepted, devalued, lonely, rejected, excluded, defrauded, dishonored, and shunned...

We may feel shut out at every turn...and in great heart-pain...

That doesn't mean there is no hope.

That doesn't mean life can't do a turn-around.

It doesn't mean this is all there is.

Because:

the best part of the Christmas story is that, even for us, there can be an "and-suddenly."

Look up!

Watch for it!

At the most unlikely time...

...when things seem the darkest...
...and the hardest...
...and the loneliest...

God just might be preparing to send heaven-to-earth to collide with our tragedy and turn it to triumph...

AND SUDDENLY...