Christmas Eve Service

A Christmas Eve candlelight message on the name the season turns on: Emmanuel —"God with us." Danny Cox works from Matthew 1 and Isaiah's 700-year-old prophecy to draw out three weights the name carries. First, it is God's message that he is for us, not against or distant from us (John 3:16). Second, in taking on flesh, Jesus became deeply relatable—a high priest able to sympathize, born not into a palace but a manger. Third, the manger was the start of a mission that culminated at the cross, the answer to a sin none of us could repair ourselves. It closes where a candlelight service does: Jesus as the light of the world, and the charge that those who receive that light are now to carry it.