A few weeks ago, my friend Brian and I were enjoying one of our late night conversations when he asked me if I thought people would recognize Jesus if He were to walk among us today–and if He were walking among us, where would He be? I wasn’t sure how to answer Brian’s questions.

December 25 is often a day set aside for family, friends, and for some, celebrating the birth of Christ. Traditionally, Christmas is a time to celebrate or remember the birth of Emmanuel, or “God with us.” The Christmas story is one that persuades me to reflect on Brian’s question of whether or not we would recognize “God with us” present time today.

Luke 9:58 writes that Jesus was a man who had “no place to lay His head.”  He ate meals with prostitutes, racial minorities, the poor, the diseased and desolate, because He “came to seek and save those who are lost.”  He didn’t seem to stay in comfortable places and wait for the needy to come to Him. Rather, He sought out the marginalized, openly recognized their presence and approached them in public. He often went and met them in their environment.

I will admit that, at times, it seems so much easier to remain disengaged with the lost, broken and disenfranchised. The Christmas story though, demonstrates and reminds us of something much greater.  Emmanuel, “God with us” illustrates a picture incarnational grace—to step down from a place of comfort to dwell among the poor; to visit broken streets and neighborhoods, to show love to those who are oppressed and without hope. The Christmas story is demonstrated in our own lives when we intentionally come into relationships with the dispossessed of society in order to destroy the walls of indifference within ourselves while restoring the value that was stolen from those who have been marginalized and rejected.  It is in these unexpected relationships and brief moments of grace that I see Emmanuel here today.