It’s a wonderful story, the one we will tell this evening, the one about Mary and Joseph and how they have a baby far from home, in a stable, where the animals are kept.

 This was before women had babies in hospitals. They have them at home, ordinarily, but in the story, Mary and Joseph have to leave their home because the government decides that everyone should be counted; and to do that, it orders everyone to go to the city or town where the husband’s ancestors once lived.

 So Joseph takes Mary and goes from Nazareth, the city where they live, to Bethlehem, which is pretty far away, even though she’s about to have a baby. They’re hoping that when they get there, they can get a room at the inn, like a motel today, a place to stay when you’re away from home.

 But the inn is all filled up with other people. Still, the innkeeper tries to be helpful and lets Mary and Joseph stay in the barn for animals, which is called a stable; and that’s where Mary has her baby, whom she names Jesus. She wraps him up in “long narrow bands of cloth,” which are called swaddling clothes, and she puts him into the hay in the trough that the sheep and the goats eat out of, which is called a manger.

 As it turns out, this little kid grows up to be a very important person – not a rich man, not a big deal politician or baseball player, not a famous singer or movie star. No, he grows up to be someone who helps other people get well when they’re not, and who says some wonderful things. He says people shouldn’t worry so much about what they have – you know, like things – but we should care about trying to make the world more fair and kind for everyone, especially for people who don’t have many things.

 This makes people in charge pretty nervous, and the story doesn’t end well for Jesus -- except that what he says is remembered by people who heard him, and they remember what a good and loving person he was. They tell other people. Next thing you know, the word is getting around about Jesus and what he did and said, and people are thinking, I should care less about myself and what I want, and more about others and their needs.

 So like I said, Jesus became a very important person. After that, after he died, people began doing what people do, they made the story of his birth even more wonderful, to say how special a person he turned out to be. They said, a star shone over the stable. Angels came to tell people who were out in the hills watching over their sheep about Jesus’ birth.

 Well, you’ve probably heard it all before and this evening at 5:00, you will have a chance to hear it again and see it acted out. It’s a wonderful story, and it’s always nice to hear again. We’ll it at 7:00, too.

 Some day, though, you will hear someone say, “But the story isn’t true! Jesus wasn’t really born in Bethlehem, he wasn’t born in the winter, there were no shepherds or angels on high, there was no star, we’re not even sure that there ever was a Jesus.”

 Don’t you worry, though, it’s still a wonderful story, every bit as good as “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” or “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” It’s worth our telling all over again; and we will, every year.

And there probably was a man named Jesus, wherever he was born, and whatever his real birthday may be. And as to his being born in a barn with the animals -- well why not: he wasn’t from a family with money or power. It could have been that way.

The shepherds, the angels, and the star … well, that’s a way of telling a story, a way of saying, this person Jesus, he really was something special, in the end. And he was. Most people in our religion don’t think there really were angels or a star that came down to hover over the barn. But we think it makes for a real pretty story, a way that the people who wrote the story, a long time ago, had of saying, “Listen, this Jesus, he was one important person.”

And it’s true, even if all the parts of the story aren’t, exactly. Because of all Jesus did and all he said about kindness to others, he was important. He still is.
 

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