Closed for Christmas. No birth in history has changed the world like that quiet, unsuspecting night in Bethlehem. Two thousand years later, no day marks as many calendars, determines as many schedules, pauses as many businesses, and draws together as many friends and families.

No prophet’s or great teacher’s origin, no king’s or president’s birth, no other single event in the history of the world transcends tribes and nations, continents and hemispheres, epochs and ages, liberal college campuses and secular places of employment, as the birth of one Jesus of Nazareth. Even the annual calendar at Hogwarts is set in time with Christmas Day.

And this peculiar influence is no accident of history. When we pause to ponder the surprise that this “present evil age,” at least for now, nearly shuts down for Christmas, we see the wink and smile of God. Rightly has no birth story, the world over, been rehearsed even nearly as often as the day that God himself, in the person of his Son, was born among us as one of us, fully God and fully human, to save his people from their sin.

God and Man in One

Of course, to mark the birth of “God himself” is far more controversial than just “Jesus of Nazareth.” Historically, the birth of the latter is hard to deny with a level head. Yet, the heart of the Christian faith pulses with “Jesus of Nazareth” as “God himself.”

“On Christmas Day, we celebrate the birth of ‘the God-man’ — man like every other, and God like no other.”

On Christmas Day, we celebrate the birth of “the God-man” — man like every other, and God like no other. A long history of devout and deliberate thought and tense dialogue has taught us to call him, among countless other names, “the God-man.”

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