Every
year, I enjoy listening to the BBC’s worldwide live radio broadcast of the
Christmas Eve service from King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England. This
Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols combines Scripture readings, prayers, and
choral music in a moving service of worship. One year, I was struck by the
announcer’s description of the congregation leaving the magnificent chapel,
saying they were “stepping out of this moment of grace and back into the real
world.”
Wasn’t it
that way on the first Christmas? The shepherds heard an angel announce the
birth of the Savior, Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11), followed by a “multitude of
the heavenly host praising God” (vv.13-14). After they found Mary, Joseph, and
the Baby in Bethlehem, the shepherds couldn’t help telling others about this
Child (v.17). “The shepherds went back to work, glorifying and praising God for
everything that they had heard and seen, which had happened just as they had
been told” (v.20 Phillips).
They had
been changed by their “moment of grace.” As they stepped back into their real
world, they carried the good news about Jesus in their hearts and voices.
May we too take God’s grace into the real world this Christmas and every day of the new year.
