Hey, I want to welcome all of our partner churches around the country and those of you in the Atlanta area and especially our friends down on the south side. So by this time, we are all anticipating Christmas. I mean, if you aren't anticipating it, you're so late. We're planning. We're purchasing. Maybe you're panicking. Maybe you're already anticipating who's going to be there and who's not and where they're going to sit and what's he going to talk about. And is she going to say that thing like she says every year? I don't know what your experience is with extended family. But anyway, here's something that's impossible for us to get our minds or hearts around. Once upon a time, I mean, regardless of whether you're religious or not, this is, we just can't even imagine this.

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as Christmas.

I mean, for us, it's kind of a point in the year that, you know, we kind of navigate to and around and it's a reference point.

But once upon a time in the world, there was, there was no Christmas.

Nobody was expecting what happened that created this event that has been such a part of our lives since we were kids. And for sure, as we're

going to talk about a little bit today, for sure, nobody was anticipating the first Christmas.

Nobody was anticipating somebody named Jesus. Nobody was anticipating somebody named Jesus. Nobody was

anticipating the Christmas story. Nobody had that on their radar at all. Nobody specifically,

nobody anticipated, nobody from any part of the world was anticipating God or a God to move in

the direction of mere mortals. And if a God decided to move in the direction of mere mortals,

a god certainly would not show up in Judea,

which was considered the armpit of the Roman Empire.

If you were assigned to Judea in the first century,

you'd done something terribly wrong,

or this was going to be your last shot.

And you certainly wouldn't

expect that a god would show up as a baby born to a peasant girl engaged to a day

laborer you you couldn't make that up but more to the point you wouldn't make that up

you wouldn't make that story up because it just discredits your entire story.

I mean, if God's going to be born, God's going to be born in Rome or maybe Alexandria, Egypt,

you know, somewhere important to important people.

And besides that, and I don't spend a lot of time on this, the Judeans, they didn't need for God to show up.

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