Bad guys, good guys. Every great story has a combination of these characters. And the story of the birth of Jesus has its share of them. The primary villain in the whole nativity narrative is Herod the Great. He was the first in a line of Herods who ruled all...

What to do with Jesus? The Christmas story is full of people who had to answer this question. It really started with Mary, a young girl living in Nazareth. She was a woman promised. Her husband was to be Joseph, a carpenter in the town. And then Gabriel arrived in...

Joseph the carpenter wanted to do the right thing, the gentle thing, the merciful thing. His betrothed, his wife-to-be, was found to be with child. Her pregnancy, by appearances, came out of order. He had not yet taken her to be his wife, and he certainly had not known her...

The wise men watched the skies. These men of night vision cataloged constellations and planets. The sighting of the “Star” must have been a moment unlike any other for them. Comets and asteroids came and went, but this Light was of another kind. It stood still, as if to show...