The angels declared almost two thousand years ago that God had broken into our world in a special way, that the savior of the world had come. Peace on earth was declared and it was foretold that this baby would save his people from their sins – save them from their flawed-ness, their brokenness.

Today, all these years later, the world still seems pretty un-saved. Peace has not come on the earth and even if we can’t see it in ourselves, we can definitely see in other people that our brokenness has yet to be healed – at least not completely.

So what does Christmas mean? Why does it matter? What changed?

In a way, these are questions we try to answer for our children before we tuck them in on Christmas Eve. We tell them one more time the Christmas story. We tell them that our view of God shapes our view of life and that God coming as a little baby born to a group of people on the bottom end of life and drowning in problems means that God loves us, God sees us, and God hears us, especially when we think no one else does. We tell them that God was giving us himself. We tell them that God was giving the perfect medicine for people infected by fear and hate and sadness – incredible love and a sure hope. We tell them that Christmas is God giving us a special promise that one day God will heal all the brokenness and make all the sad things come untrue.

I don’t know how much of this my kids get. This year they’ll only be three and almost six. What I do think they get, at least a little bit is what we do next. After story time is over, we light a candle, put it in a mason jar and take it outside and set it in the darkness. Then we come inside, look out the window at the little candle flickering in the dark and say, “That is Christmas. It is a light in the darkness. It doesn’t mean that all the darkness is gone, but having a light means that the darkness isn’t the same anymore.”

Life and age will give this image more depth and meaning for them over time, but I think bits are already seeping in.

The world has not been saved, not totally, but one day it will be. We have a light in the darkness and a confident hope.

We are a people of confident longing with the prayer, “Come Lord Jesus” in our hearts.

Merry Christmas!