Christmas Eve.
Historically, this was the last day that the coming of the Messiah would be talked about in the future tense.
For millennia, the prophets and ancient writers had one message: He will come.
Someday.
Somewhere.
In a moment that none of them could pinpoint, and yet all of them would highlight, the Savior of the world would come.
They were the ones encouraging the people of Gd to keep waiting, keep believing, and keep going. Everything pointed to the future until, on a hillside outside a sleepy town, heaven broke through to tell shepherds that heaven had broken through.
The future became the present, and that simple changed tense changed everything.
He was no longer coming. He was here.
Immanuel. God with us. Not God sending a postcard from heaven wishing we were there. Not God peeking into the mess we’d made of His creation, and sending tips from a distance on how to fix things.
No, He came and lived among us. He was here, in the mess that we had made from what He had made. And He is still here. He is still Immanuel.
God is with us, and because He is, we have hope now instead of hoping to have some later.
