Chuck Foreman – Teaching Pastor

We all have things in our personal closets that we’d prefer people don’t know about, but which, in reality, show the power of God to redeem anyone and any situation—if we’re willing to bring what we keep in the shadows into the light.

Matthew, previously known to his community as Levi, the thieving tax collector, had experienced this personally with Jesus, who had welcomed him—of all people—into his inner circle of disciples.  Now Matthew tells the story of Jesus from this perspective: a Loving God having become a Vulnerable Savior in order to redeem a very vulnerable humanity.

What Matthew had experienced firsthand is that God is not ashamed to enter the most unmentionable corners of the human story, because it demonstrates his power to redeem humanity from darkness and his willingness to lower himself into utter vulnerability for our sake.

Matthew’s rather anticlimactic ending to the birth story of Jesus is actually the amazing part of the Christmas Story we never tell, but perhaps we should…