All Thirty-Three

On August 5, 2010, the San José copper mine in Chile's Atacama Desert collapsed, trapping thirty-three miners beneath two thousand feet of rock. For seventeen days, families gathered at the surface in a makeshift camp they called Camp Hope. They lit candles. They prayed. They waited in agonizing silence, not knowing whether their fathers, husbands, and sons were dead or alive.

Then a drill probe was pulled back to the surface, and taped to it was a scrap of paper written in red marker: "Estamos bien en el refugio, los 33." We are fine in the shelter, all thirty-three of us.

The camp erupted. Strangers embraced. Grown men fell to their knees weeping. Church bells rang across the country. The news was not for one family — it was for all of them. Every single one.

Two thousand years earlier, shepherds huddled on a dark Judean hillside, tending someone else's flocks, expecting nothing. Then the sky tore open and an angel delivered a message that would reshape human history: "Fear not, for I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."