The word grace means unconditional love, love with no strings attached, love that is not earned, love freely given even when it is not deserved. In a beautiful way, Christmas shows us God's amazing grace. The late Scottish scholar William Barclay put it like this:

Jesus is the one person who can tell us what God is like...Before Jesus came people had only vague and shadowy, and often quite wrong, ideas about God; they could only at best guess and grope; but Jesus could say, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). In Jesus, we see the love, the compassion, the mercy, the seeking heart, the purity of God as nowhere else in all the world. With the coming of Jesus at Christmas the time of guessing is gone, and the time of certainty is come...Jesus came to tell us the truth about God.

Friend of Dial Hope, this, you see, is the "good news," the TA-DA! Of Christmas. Jesus shows us what God is like, and the word is grace. And grace means unconditional love.

Let us pray: In getting ready for Christmas, O Lord, we admit that our lives are often dominated by the unholy trinity of hurry, flurry, and worry. Help us be quiet and slow down and not miss the real beauty and truth of the season. Illuminate our lives with peace, joy, hope, love and grace. Come, Lord Jesus, for we are your people and we wait for you now, for your name's sake. Amen.