A Note from the Pastor
A Red-Nosed Reminder of God’s Grace
As a kid, I grew up watching many of the classic Christmas cartoons: A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, and perhaps my favorite, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. They’re fun, nostalgic, and an easy way to slip into the Christmas spirit. But every so often, one of these stories ends up teaching us a little more than it meant to.
Rudolph’s story, beneath all the stop-motion charm, carries a surprising echo of the gospel. On the surface, it’s just a tale about a misfit reindeer with a nose bright enough to give the FAA concerns. But deeper down, it mirrors two essential truths at the heart of Jesus’ birth.
One of those truths is that the one nobody expected becomes the one everybody needed. When Rudolph is born, his glowing red nose marks him as an outsider. He tries to hide it, fit in, and play along, but the more he hides who he really is, the more he feels like he doesn’t belong. Then comes the twist: the very thing that made him feel unworthy becomes the thing that saves Christmas. It’s a fictional story, of course, but it still reflects something profoundly true: God has a way of showing up in the unexpected. Jesus didn’t arrive with power, prestige, or fanfare. He was born in a manger, wrapped in humility. The world didn’t expect Him, but He turned out to be exactly who we needed. God’s grace loves to work through the overlooked and the ordinary.
The second truth echoed in Rudolph’s tale is that God has a deep compassion for outsiders. Rudolph doesn’t wander alone; he’s joined by Hermey the dentist-elf, Yukon Cornelius, The Abominable Snow Monster (“Bumble,” once feared and later transformed), and the Misfit Toys—each with their own quirks, oddities, and reasons they never quite fit in. They form a little community of misfits, bound together by their shared experience of not matching the expectations others placed on them. And while Rudolph and his friends are just fictional creations, their story still captures a glimmer of a much bigger reality we see in Scripture: God consistently draws near to those the world pushes to the edges. When Jesus was born, the announcement didn’t go first to kings or religious elites. It went to shepherds—people living on the margins, often overlooked, rarely invited into the “important” spaces.
Maybe that’s why Rudolph still resonates with us today. We’ve all had moments where we’ve felt out of place, unseen, or unsure of our worth. Some of us have known what it feels like to face unacceptance or even outright marginalization from others. But the Christmas story reminds us that God sees us, chooses us, and calls us—not once we have everything sorted out, but right in the middle of our messiness and wounded places. And while Rudolph is just a seasonal cartoon, it still carries a small echo of the grace fully revealed in Jesus: the reminder that those the world overlooks are so often the ones God tenderly draws near.
This Advent, may you be encouraged by the God who came quietly into the world and continues to meet us in the places we least expect. And may His light guide you, strengthen you, and remind you that you are loved, wanted, and never alone.
Merry Christmas, friends.
Pastor Chris Hardy
As a kid, I grew up watching many of the classic Christmas cartoons: A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, and perhaps my favorite, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. They’re fun, nostalgic, and an easy way to slip into the Christmas spirit. But every so often, one of these stories ends up teaching us a little more than it meant to.
Rudolph’s story, beneath all the stop-motion charm, carries a surprising echo of the gospel. On the surface, it’s just a tale about a misfit reindeer with a nose bright enough to give the FAA concerns. But deeper down, it mirrors two essential truths at the heart of Jesus’ birth.
One of those truths is that the one nobody expected becomes the one everybody needed. When Rudolph is born, his glowing red nose marks him as an outsider. He tries to hide it, fit in, and play along, but the more he hides who he really is, the more he feels like he doesn’t belong. Then comes the twist: the very thing that made him feel unworthy becomes the thing that saves Christmas. It’s a fictional story, of course, but it still reflects something profoundly true: God has a way of showing up in the unexpected. Jesus didn’t arrive with power, prestige, or fanfare. He was born in a manger, wrapped in humility. The world didn’t expect Him, but He turned out to be exactly who we needed. God’s grace loves to work through the overlooked and the ordinary.
The second truth echoed in Rudolph’s tale is that God has a deep compassion for outsiders. Rudolph doesn’t wander alone; he’s joined by Hermey the dentist-elf, Yukon Cornelius, The Abominable Snow Monster (“Bumble,” once feared and later transformed), and the Misfit Toys—each with their own quirks, oddities, and reasons they never quite fit in. They form a little community of misfits, bound together by their shared experience of not matching the expectations others placed on them. And while Rudolph and his friends are just fictional creations, their story still captures a glimmer of a much bigger reality we see in Scripture: God consistently draws near to those the world pushes to the edges. When Jesus was born, the announcement didn’t go first to kings or religious elites. It went to shepherds—people living on the margins, often overlooked, rarely invited into the “important” spaces.
Maybe that’s why Rudolph still resonates with us today. We’ve all had moments where we’ve felt out of place, unseen, or unsure of our worth. Some of us have known what it feels like to face unacceptance or even outright marginalization from others. But the Christmas story reminds us that God sees us, chooses us, and calls us—not once we have everything sorted out, but right in the middle of our messiness and wounded places. And while Rudolph is just a seasonal cartoon, it still carries a small echo of the grace fully revealed in Jesus: the reminder that those the world overlooks are so often the ones God tenderly draws near.
This Advent, may you be encouraged by the God who came quietly into the world and continues to meet us in the places we least expect. And may His light guide you, strengthen you, and remind you that you are loved, wanted, and never alone.
Merry Christmas, friends.
Pastor Chris Hardy
