Jesus said, "Let us go somewhere else -- to the nearby villages -- so I can preach there also. That is why I have come." (Mark 1:38 NIV)
Over the last 10 years I have conducted Christmas Eve services in some unlikely places -- restaurants, firehouses, football-stadium parking lots, and prisons. On Christmas Eve two years ago, I participated as over 350 people, nearly all strangers to one another, gathered for a Christmas Eve service of carols, candlelight and Communion -- in a downtown dance hall and bar. In this unlikely venue, I saw God move in the hearts and lives of people, most of whom never would have stepped through the door of a church. It was a powerful reminder to me that in Jesus, God reveals the intention to encounter us where we are.
Many times those of us in the church forget that Jesus was not born in a church or cathedral; he was born "off-site" in the dirt and dung of a stable for animals. He was born in the midst of the reality of life, not as in some stained-glass portrayal of a royal birth. This was a real God, for real people, in real life. That's what Emmanuel, "God with us," means.
The true miracle of Christmas is not found in the pageantry of a great Christmas Eve service. The true miracle of Christmas is the truth that God is with us in the dirt and dailyness and in the reality and imperfection of our lives.
-- J. Mack Strange in "The Upper Room Online Daily Devotional"
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