Christmas Words

English can be a fun language because it owes its existence to so many other languages. Take, for instance, the word Nativity. We know that to be a reference to that scene with Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger (Luke 2:16). (Oddly, I've never seen one of them with Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger. The adults are always beside the manger.) The word, as it turns out, comes from "Old French nativité 'birth, origin, descent; birthday; Christmas'" which comes from "Late Latin nativitatem (nominative nativitas) 'birth,' from Latin nativus 'born, native'." Wasn't that an interesting trip? At the start, then, the word literally means "to become native by birth." Consider a second word: incarnation. That is a similarly interesting trip (which I'll spare you), but it means at its core "to be made flesh."

Put them together and you have a pair of almost synonyms, at least as they relate to Christ. On the day of His birth, Jesus, who was "in the form of God" (Php 2:6) became a native human by means of birth. Nativity. On the day of His birth, Jesus, who "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1), was made flesh. Scripture says, "And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him." (Col 1:21-22)

Sometimes I think the magnitude of what is "Christmas" -- the birth of Christ -- is lost on us simply because of our familiarity with Christmas. God became flesh (John 1:14). He became a native human, entering this world He made (John 1:3) through a birth canal. And, not satisfied with that humiliation, He came for the express purpose of "becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Php 2:8) For me. And you.

Christmas Day is the celebration of that miracle. We refer to the "miracle of life" when we look at a baby being born. How much more of a miracle is the miracle of the birth of God in the flesh, the arrival of the Creator who became a native by being born? In that flesh He came to die in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach. Christmas is about miraculous Nativity, astounding Incarnation.