It’s a story filled with angels, and so a story filled with grace.

An angel reveals to an aged priest that his wife will bear a son named John. The angel Gabriel announces to a virgin that she will be the mother of the promised Messiah, whose very name announces our salvation. Her fiancé—like Joseph of old, a man of dreams—is counseled by an angel to welcome the gracious plan devised by heaven to save the world.

Another angel declares to startled shepherds that the Messiah has been born in Bethlehem, and the night sky shines like noon as thousands of angels celebrate the grace gifted to us.

As the story of Jesus’ birth so richly shows, grace is always reaching out to weary, broken people like us. Carpenters and homemakers, shepherds and preachers—to each of us comes the good news that “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Every time we fear that we are desperately alone, heaven reminds us, as the poet says, that “There are angels in these fields.”

Grace is always singing somewhere—in our homes, our churches, and the places where we work. Good news rides on wings of light.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott