This year, we’ve been looking at the name of our Savior, the name of the baby we remember in the manger– the name of Jesus Christ. It’s a name that casts out fear and embodies peace. It’s a name that inspires the praise of all creation and every redeemed man. It’s a name that saved us from our sins and allowed us to enter into the presence of God the Father. It’s a name that only the Son of God could truly bear and carry out.

Jesus, God saves. Immanuel, God with us. Christ, the anointed One.

Jesus was not an uncommon name in Biblical times. It still isn’t, even though most will think of the same Jesus when they hear the name.

Back in Jesus Christ’s time, salvation was so longed for that the people named their children after it. Jesus meaning in simple terms, “God saves.” But when the angel came to Mary and Joseph, they both received the same name, and it was an indication of the work God was doing through this baby King.

My daughter is learning to self-soothe when she goes to sleep. If she wakes up when we drop her in her crib, or if she wakes in the middle of the night, she tends to cry. But weeks ago, she cried for a long period of time, now she’s starting to only cry for a minute at most. Somehow, she's developing that ability to calm down and go back to sleep.

I remember being a kid and feeling that uneasy feeling of laying awake in your bed and not being able to fall asleep. At some point, I learned at school that Jesus’ name has the power to drive out fear, and I decided to apply it to that creepy feeling that something will come crawling out of the shadows in your dark room. I started to just say aloud, into the darkness the name of Jesus. Even now when that feeling comes over me I do the same thing. And always, without fail, I instantly feel a calm come over me, driving out my fear.

I grew up in the early days of the internet, when you still connected using dial up. You couldn’t use the phone when someone was on the web. As a kid, the internet was used for fun and games, but as I became a teenager, the draw became AOL Instant Messenger. That means I was part of the generation that abbreviated everything: LOL, G2G, TTYL, and probably the most commonly used OMG! Somehow, that turn of phrase became so embedded in the way I think and talk, to the point where I don’t even realize I’m using it sometimes. Lately, Sam has been correcting me more about it. “We have to start being aware of the language we use, because Piper is going to start mimicking it.”

I wrote those words in the middle of winter, while sitting at my desk in small-town Potsdam, New York. Three months later, as I re-read my old, unedited words, I sat back and thought about how much my life had been flipped upside down. Later that night, I had received an email, saying that I would have three days to get rid of all of my belongings, and move out of my college dorm to live with my parents on Long Island again. I was crushed, especially after writing such strong, comforting words earlier that morning.