Your story, and my story, they were meant to cross paths with God’s story.

Jesus sees Levi, a man no one trusts, sitting at his stand on the shore of Galilee and he says to him, “Come Follow Me.” How could Jesus do such a thing? Tax collectors were lumped into the same category as murderers and theives.

You’ve got to wonder if what Jesus told the leper was all in jest because the leper couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He couldn’t help but go and tell everyone what Jesus had done for him. It’s as if Jesus infected the leper with something way more contagious than leprosy. Jesus had infected him with hope that leads to love.

A new wilderness prophet has arrived speaking on behalf of God but he knows he’s unworthy to even take off the sandals of Jesus. And he’s just the start of a long line of people who are unworthy to follow Jesus but Jesus extends an invitation to walk with him anyway.

Nearby, some shepherds were tending to their flocks. And while Caesar Augustus made his royal court in Rome, God had decided to make his royal court the fields where these shepherds lay. Caesar Augustus may have proclaimed a census from Rome but God would make his proclamation that the Messiah had entered the world by sending his messenger angels to the least likely and the oft forgotten.

God was about to speak into the silence but it would be more than just words this time. Zechariah’s doubt would be turned upside down. The people’s assumption that Elizabeth’s barrenness was a curse would be proved false. John would bring them both great joy. Even their neighbors would celebrate all throughout the hills.

The temple was never designed to bring life. It was God in the temple that brings life. But now it’s Jesus, God made flesh, that will be the glory of Israel, a light to the Gentiles, the Messiah who brings life.