Although the world certainly seems to be changing faster and faster all the time, there are some things that are not changing and will never change. One thing that will never change is the wonder of Christmas for all who receive the gift that God gave to us that first Christmas night. True, we are different in some ways from those people who were living on that first Christmas two thousand years ago. But the great blessing of this silent, holy night is exactly the same for us as it was for them.

People at that time needed hope in God just as people do today. If I had been seeking God on that first Christmas, I doubt that I would have known to go to a feed-trough in the tiny village of Bethlehem. I probably would’ve gone to the temple in Jerusalem. And, when I walked up to the temple, I probably would have come to a sign hanging there which said, “No foreigner is allowed to enter.” That would have kept me, along with any of you who are not Jews, from entering God’s house.

God had set His temple up this way on purpose, and He did so in order to foreshadow the great miracle of Christmas. God selected the Jews as His chosen people. Everyone who was not of true, native descent from this people was excluded from His temple. This pointed to the coming of Him who was God’s Native-born Son.

Every person since the fall into sin has been a “foreigner” to God by nature. The sin with which each of us was born makes us unable to claim “natural-born” citizenship in the kingdom of God. As surely as I would have been naturally disqualified from entering the temple in Jerusalem, so also every person who has ever lived is naturally disqualified from entering into God’s presence.

But thanks be to God that we were not left outside His presence! A very literal translation of the word for “foreigner” on that sign which hung outside the temple is “other-begotten” (allo-genes). But, just seven miles away from that forbidding sign, One was being born who was “Only-begotten” (mono-genes), as John says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The Nativity of Christ Jesus means that we have free entrance into God’s presence. Now that He has come, we are given the freedom to go to God’s house and worship Him “in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). Christ lived the holy, perfect life that none of us could, and His death on the cross has paid the price for our sins. Because of this great exchange that our Savior has made for us, we need be foreigners no longer. We are God’s children by faith in His Only-begotten Son and our Savior.

So this Christmas, and every Christmas, we can cling to God with confidence in our salvation and with certainty of His love for us. Christ made His dwelling among mankind. And He still dwells in our hearts through the sacred knowledge of faith. Christ lives in us—in you and in me—with all of His grace and all of His truth and all of the other blessings that our beloved carols sing about. The proclamation of the angels on that first Christmas night is still the same proclamation that we can have on our own lips: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests” (Luke 2:14).

Daniel J. Finn is pastor at Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Waterloo, IA.