The Day Christ Was Born

In The Day Christ Was Born, best selling author and journalist, Jim Bishop wrote a reliable and true-to-life analysis of Jesus’ birth. I loved the realism throughout the book, but I’d like to quote for you what he says about young Mary, the soon-to-be mother."She no longer noticed the chafe of the goatskin against her leg, nor the sway of the food bag on the other side of the animal. Her veiled head hung and she saw millions of pebbles on the road moving by her brown eyes in a blur, pausing, and moving by again with each step of the animal.""Sometimes she felt ill at ease and fatigued, but she swallowed this feeling and concentrated on what a beautiful baby she was about to have and kept thinking about it, the bathing, the oils, the feeding, the tender pressing of the tiny body against her breast – and the sickness went away. Sometimes she murmured the ancient prayers and, for the moment, there was no road and no pebbles and she dwelt on the wonder of God and saw Him in a fleecy cloud at a windowless wall of an inn or a hammock of trees, walking backward in front of her husband, beckoning Him on. God was everywhere. It gave Mary confidence to know that He was everywhere. She needed confidence. Mary was fifteen.""Most young ladies of the country were betrothed at thirteen and married at fourteen. A few were not joined in holiness until fifteen or sixteen and these seldom found a choice man and were content to be shepherds’ wives, living in caves in the sides of the hills, raising their children in loneliness, knowing only the great stars of the night lifting over hills, and the whistle of the shepherd as he turned to lead his flock to a new pasture. Mary had married a carpenter. He had been apprenticed by his father at bar mitzvah. Now he was nineteen and had his own business."Jim Bishop goes on and helps us to see that Mary and Joseph and all the characters of the Christmas story, were real people, with thoughts and feelings like ours.This Christmas Eve or Christmas Day read through Luke 2 with your family, and put yourself into the shoes of the characters involved. Remember them as normal people in a true story.But when you see the Baby––worship!