But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ, the Lord.

Luke 2:10-11

Have you ever been in a situation where suddenly your assumptions or thoughts about a specific person or thing were pretty much blown away or turned upside down? I remember watching the Michigan/Ohio game a few weeks back. I was pretty confident of the outcome. I was sure that this year, Michigan would fairly easily take the game. There came a time during the game, however, that my confidence – my assumptions – were blown out of the water, and I had to adjust my thinking to realize that I was mistaken – badly mistaken. We often have preconceived ideas about what a person is going to be like or how they are going to behave just by looking at them. More often than not, once we get to know them, we find that we were very wrong. There are those moments of clarity where we realize that what we thought was the case may not necessarily be the case at all.

If we read the passage in Luke 2:8-14, we find that the shepherds who were out in the field outside of Bethlehem experienced one of those moments in a huge way. I think it’s safe to say that the shepherds knew God, or at least they knew Him as well as they could. They were Israelites. Their people had a rich history with God. They were, after all, God’s people. But everything they thought they knew about God and His ways was pretty much overwhelmed that night. All of a sudden, the God who was a little distant and a lot mysterious was right in their world – in their faces, so to speak.

Verse 9 says that the glory of the Lord shone around them. Try to imagine that. God was no longer an idea. He was real. He had broken the invisible barrier between His Kingdom and this world. And I would dare to say that the world has never been the same. “Breaking the barrier.” Isn’t that a great way of thinking about the Christmas story? Isn’t it as simple as God breaking the barrier and coming into our world? That’s what “Immanuel” is all about, isn’t it? God literally with us? It’s that simple. Yet, the power behind that simple truth is life changing.

You are who you are today because God chose to send His Son into this world. Have you ever thought about what your relationship with God would be if God had not come in the flesh as Jesus – if we were Immanuel-less? As we celebrate Christmas, let’s rethink what the term “Immanuel” means to us compared to the idea of being “Immanuel-less.” We have much to praise the Lord about! Let’s celebrate Him!