This is what Christians confess about Christmas: Emmanuel (God with us) joined humanity, not by swooping down from the celestial heavens in a golden chariot, but by being born—born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Like all of us, God was pushed from the womb through contractions, labor, agony, and blood, to enter headfirst into the beautiful and horrible mess that is our world. This is not Athena springing fully formed from the head of Zeus, this is Jesus born of Mary.
