“Give him the name Jesus,” the angel said.

An ordinary, everyday name at the time. Nothing special.

Born in an ordinary, everyday place.

He lived an ordinary, everyday life. Working his father’s trade in an ordinary village.

Living our ordinary lives. Experiencing our hurts and dreams. Our pain and joy. Dancing exuberantly at weddings. Grieving heavily at funerals.

Unaccounted for by those who count such things.

Before he drank the cup of death, he drained the cup of life. Fully human and fully God, baptized into our ordinary, everyday life before revealing his glory. Covered in flesh so that we could approach him, touch him.

Embrace him, and be embraced.

His was no short-term mission, merely sipping from the cup of our struggles. He drank it down, down to the dregs, down to the empty longing for something more.

Sympathy gave way to empathy in the everyday, ordinary life of a small town Carpenter, tendering light for our darkness, bread and wine for our hunger and thirst.

Dying for us, God on a cross, offering not just his death, but also his life for our rescue. His offering of death completed by all the days that came before.

His body resurrected was one of an adult man, not an angel or spirit. A physical body, bearing the days and years of His earthly life. He kept the scars of suffering, engraved in remembrance of a love that would not die. Of a life that bore our sorrows.

Life for death, light for darkness, joy for grief, healing for suffering.

Heaven for Hell.

Bought by His death and resurrection, yes. But also by His everyday, ordinary, sinless life.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:15-16