Lesson 1. The Story of His Birth

Introduction

It happens from time to time, and when it does it almost always makes headline news. A newborn baby gets abandoned, with no hint of what his name is or who his mother is. Such stories always leave big questions. Is the mother safe and well? Why did she do such a drastic thing? Is the baby going to survive? What will happen to him? People hoping to be able to adopt the little mite jam telephone switchboards. Everyone in the community wants to know the outcome.

In most cases the details eventually come to light. Perhaps the mother was a young girl still at school. Maybe she managed to keep the pregnancy secret from family and friends. Perhaps she felt she could not manage. She may have thought that the baby would have a better life raised in someone else’s family. But, once the facts become known, a curtain of privacy descends to protect both mother and child. We usually hear nothing more about them.

But there is another story that everybody knows, at least in part. We have all heard the Christmas story, and many have proudly watched children and grandchildren in the school nativity play. Even if we are not very religious, we remember something about Mary, and Joseph, and the shepherds, wise men, King Herod, and, of course, the baby Jesus. There has been no privacy for mother and child in this case. Two thousand years later it is still a very public story.

This lesson will help recall that Bethlehem story, for no other event has so affected the history of the world.