Or was it; considering being up to your eyeballs in wedding plans? I would never have thought of Christmas as a supernatural experience. Joseph didn’t either.

Nor Mary. Not the shepherds that were just out doing their job. Possibly the astrologers: they may have been the forerunner of our climate change people of today. But the timing of it all!

We know the story of Christmas, of Mary expecting a child out-of-wedlock. My guess is this was not in her plans. She was a girl in her teens, engaged to Joseph. Back in the day it was a promise; an agreement between parents where the young people involved had no say.

Joseph didn’t believe Mary when she first told him of her pregnancy. Her line was that she was visited by an angel that told her she would become pregnant, not in the normal way, but God would do it. If you were Joseph, would you believe her?

Necessity took precedence. The society of that time would put a black mark on Joseph not waiting for his wedding day. Poor Mary could be stoned to death for her sin. Arranging for a hush-hush divorce was the only way out of this hot mess.

 Cue the angel coming to Joseph before he finally believed. Complete with telling him what the name of the baby would be. But the story doesn’t end there. A whole choir of angels appeared in the night sky for shepherds to witness. In one sense, they were not expecting this angelic visit, but on the other hand, they knew a Savior would come…sometime.

Reading in the Good Book, starting in Matthew, we are told the genealogy of her baby boy. Keep in mind this could be a fantasy story because of the supernatural nature. The following book, Mark, tells us of the things this child, now grown man did.

The book after that, Luke, goes centuries back in time, foretelling the birth of this child. Does the movie Back to the Future come to mind? After Luke, comes the book of John. In it we read more of the back story as well as a continuation of this man named Jesus.

Who would have thought this Savior would come as a baby? Everybody was looking for a king to come to set things right, not an infant!

But wait, there is more. Astrologers were watching, studying the stars, noticing one especially bright this night. They set out to follow where it was leading. 

At the risk of being a spoiler alert, I urge you to dig into this story; there is so much to gain from it. The beauty of a good book is the ability to put yourself into the story. To imagine yourself living in that life and time. What would you do? What would you think?

How would you respond, knowing full-well the injustice going on around you? The world needed a Savior, now we have access to one. Maybe I need to  cooperate with God’s plan like Mary did, accept it as Joseph did, be in awe of the miracle like the shepherds, and keep a watchful eye like the astrologers to recognize it when its as plain as the nose on my face.

Merry Christmas