Rescue is Coming

If you listen to how we tell stories, you start to notice a pattern: Christmas and rescue almost always show up together. Santa is forever getting stuck—lost wallets, global fog, sick reindeer, legal trouble—and every year someone has to step in: Rudolph, Elmo, Paw Patrol, PJ Masks, Mickey, Paddington, even Run DMC. It’s funny, but it also exposes something deep in us. We instinctively connect Christmas with saving.

The Bible says that instinct isn’t an accident. Heaven’s official message about Christmas is that rescue really is the reason for the season.

Angels are God’s dispatch riders—His messengers. Around the birth of Jesus there’s a flurry of angelic visits, far more than usual. In those messages, God answers three massive questions:

1. What do we need to be saved from?

2. Who can possibly save us?

3. Who actually gets saved?

1. What are we saved from?

In Matthew 1, Joseph’s world is falling apart. He’s engaged, then finds out Mary is pregnant—and he knows he’s not the father. He plans to break off the engagement quietly to protect her. But God sends an angel into the confusion.

The angel tells Joseph two shocking things:

This child is conceived by the Holy Spirit.

“You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

“Jesus” literally means “The Lord saves.” Rescue is baked into His name. But notice from what: not from Rome, not from bad circumstances, not from low self-esteem— from their sins.

The Bible describes sin as “missing the mark”—falling short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Isaiah says our sins have separated us from God (Isaiah 59:2). God is morally pure and relentlessly loving. We were created to reflect that purity and love, but we don’t. Not fully. Not consistently. Not even close.

Everywhere we look, the fallout is obvious. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, reflecting on the horrors of the Soviet Union, eventually boiled the cause down to one brutal sentence: “Men have forgotten God.” When we walk away from God, the world breaks. That separation from God is at the root of all the pain, injustice, and inner emptiness we see and feel.

So what do we need to be saved from? Not just from the darkness around us, but from the darkness in us—our sin, and the separation from God it creates.

2. Who can save us?

If our deepest problem is separation from a holy God, then self-help isn’t enough. We don’t just need advice; we need a Savior.

The second angel encounter answers that. Gabriel appears to Mary in Luke 1 and, instead of focusing first on sin, he focuses on the identity of the baby:

He will be great and called the Son of the Most High.

The Lord will give Him the throne of David.

He will reign forever.

He will be called holy—the Son of God (Luke 1:32–35).

Who can bridge the gap between heaven and earth? Only the God-Man—fully God to represent God to us, fully man to represent us to God. Jesus steps into our world to live the life we couldn’t, die the death we deserved, and reconnect us to the God we forgot.

We feel this in our bones. Even our songs hint at it. “We Are the World” tries to say, “We’re saving our own lives,” but Bob Dylan pointed out—that’s not reality. We can’t save ourselves.

What we need in the face of cosmic-level collapse is not just someone with us, but someone able to do something about it. “Stand By Me” is sweet, but if the sky is falling and mountains are crumbling into the sea, you don’t need a sentimental companion—you need a supernatural protector.

Psalm 46 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble… though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.” We need that kind of presence. Christmas says that Presence put on human skin.

Jesus is not just “a Jewish preacher and religious leader.” That’s like saying Superman is “a guy from Kansas.” You’re missing the plot. Heaven calls Him Savior, Lord, Son of the Most High, Son of God. This is the Rescuer who can stand between you and the blast.

3. Who gets saved?

This is where the shepherds come in.

When a world leader rolls into town, the first calls usually go to other VIPs: senators, CEOs, influencers. But when God sends the greatest announcement in history—“Today… a Savior is born”—He doesn’t send angels to Caesar’s palace or Herod’s court. He sends them to shepherds in a field (Luke 2:8–11).

Shepherds were ordinary, overlooked, working-class people. And the angels say, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people… For unto you is born… a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Good news. Great joy. For all the people. For you.

Rescue isn’t for the spiritually impressive. It’s not just for people who cleaned themselves up. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). A gift can’t be earned; it can only be received.

That’s why the gift illustration matters. “What do you have to do to receive this?” Answer: just take it. You don’t work for a gift. You open your hands.

1 John says, “Whoever has the Son has life… I write these things so you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:11–13). Hebrews adds that God is pleased by faith—by people who come with empty hands saying, “I need rescue” (Hebrews 11:6).

Who gets saved? Anyone who will admit, “I can’t save myself,” and take hold of Jesus.

Christmas means sin is not the end, death is not the end, and darkness does not win. A Rescuer has come. The God-Man has stepped into our story. Today, you don’t have to have it all together—you just have to look to Jesus and say, “I need rescue.” And He will stand by you.