Stories by Firefly! : 12 Days of Christmas || Day 7 || God With Us

Happy Sunday, lovely souls. I hope you all have the opportunity today to gather with believers, celebrate Christmas, and worship the Savior. <3

Another ramble inspired by On This Holy Night. You’re welcome. ;)

Maybe it's because I was listening to the audio narration of this book while driving home from school with nothing else to do but think and ponder. But I was totally struck dumb by something I realized. Something that I’d never realized and/or considered before. Maybe I had learned it at some time in the past, but I had never grasped it fully or understood the deeper meaning.

And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.
// luke 1:30-32

In the past, whenever I read about the angel visiting Mary, I didn't pay a lot of attention to the fact that she was also given a name for the baby. Of course His name would be Jesus, He was God's Son. The name means "to deliver, to rescue" because that's what He came to do.

What I didn't realize until recently is that, at the time of His birth, the name “Jesus” probably wasn’t uncommon. Jesus in Greek, or Yeshua in Hebrew, translates to Joshua in English. Same root word. Nearly same meaning.

Jesus: Greek - to deliver, to rescue
Yeshua: Hebrew - to deliver, to rescue
Joshua: English - God is salvation

Wait wait, hold up...

Joshua. Joshua means "God is Salvation."

Joshua, of the Old Testament, was chosen of God to led his people into the Promised Land.

One day, Jesus will gather His people home to the ultimate Promised Land.

It was likely a name that Mary and Joseph had heard before. It's reasonable to consider that at the time that Jesus was a growing up boy, living with His family in Nazareth, there were other boys nearby who were always given this name.

Somehow this realization served to deepen my understanding of the total humanity of the Son of God.

He lived among ordinary people. He had normal, ordinary parents. He had a name that wasn’t uncommon or unheard of, the name of a Jewish leader in early Old Testament times.

Not only did He live among dirty, messy humans for thirty-three years, He was fully human. The only distinction was His inability to sin. Fully God and fully man.

And the reason for it? Because the only way He could relate to us in our earthly times of pain and suffering was to come to earth and experience such for himself. He did it all for us.

Son of God.

Son of man.

Emmanuel.

God with us.