Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Christmas Story (the real one) - Part 1

In some households it is tradition to read the Christmas story from the Bible during the Christmas season or on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. What about yours? If not, perhaps you'd like to read it this year. Or begin a tradition of doing so.

Some of you know where to find it in the Bible, but for those of you who don't, during these final weeks of 2007 I'll post the references here. Why not look it up and read it for yourself...perhaps for the first time. Or if it's already familiar to you, why not read it again as if for the first time...with all the wonder and magic?!

The story is told in two of the gospels: Matthew and Luke. The birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner and relative (perhaps a cousin?) of Jesus comes first. He was conceived about six months before Jesus (according to Luke 1:26).

John's birth, too, was a miraculous birth, and God did miracles (like sending an angel and taking the father Zechariah's voice away) to get the word out that something special was going on.

Read about the announcement of the coming birth of John, Jesus' relative, in Luke 1:1-25.

If you don't have a good, modern-language Bible, I'll discuss that and give you some suggestions next time.

1 comment:

Sue Tornai said...

When my grandchildren were old enough to hear the Christmas story I started a tradition that has lasted through the years. I take the resin characters of our nativity down and give each child one or two of them. I tell the children they have to help me tell the story and they do that by giving me the characters to put in the manger scene as they are introduced in the story. I end with the wise men bringing gifts and I let them know that God sent us the greatest gift of all - His love in the person of Jesus. My grandchildren look forward to this time every year and I hope they can tell it themselves one day.