The Two Names at Christmas

At Christmas, we often picture a calm and glowing scene—Mary resting peacefully, Jesus nestled in clean hay, and the whole world humming Silent Night. But Matthew 1 gives us a different starting place. Before we ever hear the angel tell Joseph to name the child Jesus, there are other names and assumptions hovering in the air: unfaithful, illegitimate, heartbreak. This is the world Jesus entered—one full of pain, suspicion, family trauma, and broken relationships.

Joseph, faced with news no engaged man ever expects, felt what any of us might feel: anger, confusion, betrayal. He planned to end the engagement quietly. And that quiet tragedy could have been the whole story, if not for God interrupting Joseph’s grief with a dream. Only then does the story turn toward those two holy names: Jesus and Emmanuel.

Jesus—“he saves.” Emmanuel—“God with us.” These names make sense only when we remember the world they are spoken into. Jesus came not into a sanitized Christmas card, but into the real world: a world of sin and heartbreak, of children made vulnerable, of violence so relentless that Mary and Joseph fled from a murderous king. And yet into that very world, God chose to come.

Jesus saves us from our sins—Israelite and Gentile alike—by calling us back to the heart of God and by taking sin’s burden upon himself. And Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, not as fire or whisper but in flesh and blood.

This is the gospel of Christmas: salvation given, presence promised. Jesus saves. God is with us—now and forever.