Merry Christmas. Of every reading this year could have landed on today, you get this one: a city so healed that old people sit in the sun and children fill the streets playing, because God has moved back in.

And you get the sentence strangers will say when they see it: we have heard that God is with you. Immanuel, five centuries early. Come and celebrate.

David prayed it a thousand years early: part Your heavens, LORD, and come down. Zechariah promised it five hundred years early: I will return to Zion and dwell there. Today the church around the world celebrates the answer, God with us, born into a feeding trough, close enough to touch.

Revelation adds the sober note the carols skip: the God who came once is coming again, and He asks His people to stay awake. So celebrate today without reservation, and let the celebration point forward. The story that started in a manger ends with every fast turned into a festival and the nations gripping our hem, asking to come along.