News always traveled fast in my father’s village.
Every morning when we were there, my father and I would walk down the street to a little tea shop. An old man sat out front while his wife sold tea, and the village men gathered to swap stories, exchange gossip and tell all the news from the neighborhood. Whether the news was good or bad, everyone heard it before long. Life was shared face to face, and news spread person to person.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, would have lived in a community very much like that.
After the angel Gabriel appeared to her, I imagine that might be why Mary left in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She wanted to directly share the news she had just received. And when we read of their reunion in Luke 1, it is truly incredible. Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, and her unborn son leaps within her. The child in Elizabeth’s womb responds with joy at the presence of the Lord.
This is a prophetic moment, foreshadowing how John the Baptist would later become the forerunner, given the honor of telling everyone the news of the coming Messiah. But the joy goes far beyond the role he would one day play. After waiting so long for the Messiah, now He was in their midst. Christ had come. Their long vigil was nearing an end.
The Advent season is a special time of celebrating the presence of God, even as we continue to wait for the promise of Christ’s return. Every Sunday, Christians around the world gather for worship and joyfully proclaim the same truth: Christ has come, and He will come again.
That is why, at Christmas and always, we do not want to only look backward. We also look ahead. And because we know that Christ is coming back for us, we go out into the world and proclaim the Good News of “God with us.”
I have seen what happens when that good news is shared, especially at Christmas.
Each December, our missionaries and the congregations they serve celebrate Christ’s birth in simple, faithful ways: singing Christmas carols, distributing blankets or groceries to people in need, visiting leprosy patients or children with disabilities, and proclaiming again and again the joy of Christ’s coming. As they share the joy of His birth with their communities, the Lord often uses their faithfulness to transform lives.
One December, God sent a pastor named Azai to a man named Niek and his family at a moment of life and death.
Earlier that year, Niek’s wife and sister-in-law had both passed away with no apparent sickness or explanation. Now Niek was raising two teenage daughters alone, and his troubles were not over. When his brother became ill, plagued by dizziness and confined to his bed, fear gripped the family. A witch doctor told Niek he thought an evil power was at work. Worried, Niek visited the witch doctor again and sacrificed a goat on his brother’s behalf. But Niek’s brother grew only worse and lay confined to bed. Would Niek lose another loved one?
Then, in the middle of that Christmas season, Pastor Azai and other believers came to Niek’s village with a message of hope. When they visited his home, they shared about the God whose birth they were celebrating. After their visit, Niek’s family began experiencing a surpassing peace — and, miraculously, his brother recovered.
From that day on, Niek trusted in Jesus.
There was no church nearby, but Pastor Azai continued to visit the family. Neighbors joined. Soon, 10 to 15 people were gathering regularly to worship Christ together. A family, and then a community, found hope because some believers came to share the news of the Word who became flesh and dwelled among us.
I think again of that tea shop in my father’s village. It is no longer there. The chance to share news in that way has passed. But this December, we will each be given our own simple opportunities to tell the story of Christ’s coming.
My prayer is that, just like John the Baptist, our joy will make His presence known to everyone around us — and that for the first time many others will join with us to say, with confidence and gladness, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”
Bishop Daniel Timotheos Yohannan is the President of GFA World and is consecrated bishop of the Believers Eastern Church. In his role as president of GFA World, Bishop Daniel serves as a primary link between thousands of Christian workers and missionaries serving throughout Asia and Africa and the rest of the Church worldwide.
