In the Gospel of Saint Luke it is said that Joseph and Mary went up from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register.
They obeyed an edict of the Emperor Caesar Augustus that Governor Cirino applied in Syria.
Mary was pregnant, and when they got there, "the days of her delivery were fulfilled, and she gave birth to her firstborn, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." .
The Angel of the Lord immediately took care of warning some shepherds who slept in the open nearby and who took turns to watch over the flock.
He announced to them that a savior had just been born to them and that they would recognize him because his parents had the baby in swaddling clothes in a manger.
Immediately afterwards there was a bit of a ruckus because a “heavenly multitude” came to stand next to the angel and praise God.
The shepherds went to Bethlehem, found the child, talked about what had happened to them and all who listened to them were amazed.
And that's how it all started more or less, according to one of the versions.
There are others.
In the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, however, there is talk of some wise men from the East who came to Bethlehem to adore that "King of the Jews" who had just been born.
In this version it is explained that it was Herod who reigned in Judea.
News reached him of what had happened and he did not like it, so he sent to kill all the children of Bethlehem and the entire region.
The angel of the Lord intervened promptly and entered Joseph's dream to warn him of the risk the little boy was running.
"Flee to Egypt," he told her.
He did, and saved him.
These are days when the birth of Jesus is remembered and celebrated, and it's a good thing that people don't go to the sources much, because it's easy to get confused and it's difficult to understand how things happened then.
Nothing is known about the Angel of the Lord in the 21st century, nobody knows what he looks like, and there has been no news of that "heavenly crowd" that usually accompanies him on some special occasions to praise God.
There are many people, in fact, who since the 19th century have even given God for dead.
Others, at the same time, strove instead to study the historical character, the flesh and blood Jesus who grew up in Nazareth.
One of them was the historian Ernest Renan.
He was responsible for a scientific mission that explored the area where Jesus lived in 1860 and 1861.
He speaks with wonder of Nazareth,
of that "conglomerate of houses built without style" that present a "dry and poor aspect".
Of the surroundings he writes that "they are delicious" and affirms that "no other place in the world was so conducive to dreams of absolute happiness".
All of us who have lived in the West have been cooking in a pot over low heat for centuries with the ingredients of these stories of Jesus.
They are almost part of an interior landscape and that is why everyone remembers their childhood Christmases.
Then, of course, you grow.
And the tears begin.
These days sometimes have something to do with the desire to try to sew up those tears that are dragging on in any way, or at least to fix them.
Good luck, good luck in these festivities.
The angel of the Lord is missing and these are difficult times.
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