The world trains us to measure holidays by noise and nostalgia…tradition layered on top of tradition. We learn to associate sacred moments with familiarity. Yet Scripture presses us to look deeper, past the surface, to the moment when God did not simply speak into history but stepped into it. What happened in Bethlehem was not designed to be seasonal or sentimental. It was decisive. Heaven crossed the threshold into earth.

One of the most striking connections in the Bible is how carefully the gospel writers echo the opening lines of Genesis. Scripture begins with God speaking light into darkness, order into chaos, life where there was none. John opens his gospel by reaching back to that same beginning. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. Then comes the sentence that should stop us cold. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God did not send a message; He sent Himself. The eternal Word put on flesh and breath and entered the world He had spoken into existence.

That language is deliberate. To say He dwelt among us is to say He pitched His tent with us. God chose to live in the middle of human weakness, hunger, fatigue, and fear. The One who once walked with Adam in the garden now lay in a feeding trough, dependent on a young mother for warmth and nourishment. The hands that shaped humanity from dust were now small enough to be wrapped in cloth. Eternity learned to breathe our air.

Luke tells us angels announced good news of great joy, but the joy they proclaimed was not rooted in comfort or ease. It was born in obscurity and aimed toward sacrifice. The path that began in a stable ended at a cross. From the first cry of that child, redemption was already in motion. This was not God observing our pain from a distance; it was God entering it, determined to bear it and defeat it.

When we remove the layers of tradition and expectation, what remains is far more powerful. We are left with a God who refuses to remain distant, a Savior who meets humanity at its lowest point, and a kingdom that advances through humility rather than force. The incarnation reminds us that God’s greatest works often arrive quietly, wrapped in weakness, and easily overlooked. Yet for those with eyes to see, that moment still declares the same unshakable truth. God is with us, and history will never be the same.

By: Justin Odom