Written by Brian Davies
Blessed Advent season to the RKD Family!
Luke’s Gospel has often been called “the Gospel for outsiders,” and nowhere is that clearer than in the story of Christmas. While Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage through kings and patriarchs, Luke begins with two humble, unexpected people: Zechariah, a priest who doubts, and Mary, a young girl from nowhere.
Then the circle widens. The first to hear the news of the birth are not temple officials but shepherds—men considered unclean, uneducated, and perpetually on the margins of respectable Jewish society. Later, aged Simeon and Anna, long forgotten in the temple courts, recognize the identity of the Christ child long before the religious elite do. Even the genealogy in Luke 3 reaches back past Abraham to “Adam, the son of God,” (Luke 3:37) reminding us that this Savior comes for the entire human family, not only for those born inside with a certain lineage.
The manger itself is the great reversal. The One who deserves the palace arrives where outcasts feel at home: in a feeding trough, in a place usually reserved for animals and rough-handed workers. The angels bypass Jerusalem’s priests and sing instead over Bethlehem’s dark fields. In that moment heaven declares that the long-awaited Kingdom will not be guarded by pedigree, purity laws, or religious performance. It will be received by those who know they have nothing to offer—by shepherds who stink of sheep, by Gentile Magi who follow a star, and by a frightened teenage mother who simply says, “May it be to me as you have said” (Luke 1:38).
That is why Luke’s Christmas is our story. We, too, were outsiders—not because of nationality alone, but because of sin. We were “far of ” (Ephesians 2:13), Paul says, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Yet into our darkness the light has come. The same voice that startled shepherds with “Do not be afraid” (Luke 2:10) now speaks over us: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior” (Luke 2:11). The heroes of this story are never the self-assured or the spiritually impressive; they are the ones who know they need rescuing. And so the manger stands as God’s open invitation to every outsider who will simply come—empty-handed, unworthy, but welcomed.
This Advent, hear the angels’ song afresh. The Messiah has come not for those who already have it together, but for people like the shepherds, like Mary, like us. The door of the Kingdom swings wide on humble hinges, and the light that filled Bethlehem’s night is still shining for every heart that knows it lives in darkness. Come to the manger. There is room for outsiders here.
Brian Davies serves as pastor of Lord of Glory Lutheran Church in Grayslake, Illinois, and as Chaplain for the Grayslake Fire District and the Round Lake Fire Protection District. He will serve as Dean during Family Week 6 in 2026.
Learn more about Pastor Davies or register for the retreat here: https://camp-arcadia.com/attend-arcadia/family-retreats/
