Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
    because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
- Luke 1:68
 
This is the Lord’s Christmas gift to us: he has come to be with us and to redeem us. That first Christmas day proved to be a decisive moment in the relationship between God and humanity. And in today’s passage, Zechariah puts his finger right on it.
 
Zechariah’s prophecy begins with praise. He praises the Lord, his Lord. And he praises the Lord because the Lord didn’t stand at a distance from his people. God wasn’t absent from his people in their time of suffering and trial. He didn’t go to sleep or go on vacation. He leaned in and engaged. He got close … as one poet put it: “God moved into the neighborhood.”
 
And the presence of God in our midst is good news to us. God didn’t draw close to us to condemn us. He doesn’t heap guilt and shame and recrimination on our heads. He doesn’t bury us beneath bothersome bills and burdens. He breaks the bindings that block our joy. He sets us free.
 
Don’t avoid intimacy with God. We can be tempted to withdraw from him because we know we’ve made mistakes. We can feel fear that he’ll pile up on us. But the God who has come to us had come with the intention to redeem us, to buy us back, to set us free.
 
Take a moment today to rest in the presence of God. He’s here with us to redeem us. Will you sit at peace with him and relax in his presence?