JOY TO THE WORLD. HOW CHRIST'S COMING CHANGED THE WORLD

What could be more familiar than the Christmas story — and yet what could be more extraordinary? The cast of characters is strange and exotic: shepherds and magicians, an emperor and a despot, angels and a baby who is Almighty God. The strangeness calls for an explanation, and this book provides it, examining the characters and the story in light of their biblical and historical context

The circumstances of Jesus' birth are unusual, wondrous, and mysterious; yet they also follow a certain divine logic, a drama that had been unfolding since the beginning of time, a moment that God had prepared with care and precision. The evidence is in the prophecies and the foreshadowings, but also in the pages of history. Authors Scott Hahn and Mike Aquilina, who have written extensively on Scripture and the early Church, bring that evidence to light, dispelling some of the strangeness of the story. Yet they also make Christmas familiar all over again — but in a new way, by showing it to be a family story. Christmas, as it appears in the New Testament, is the story of a father, a mother, and a child — their relationships, their interactions, their principles, their individual lives, and their common life. To see the life of this "earthly trinity" is to gaze into heaven. Along the way, the authors show the relationship between the great feast day (the Christ's Mass) and the Church's liturgy, the place of the angels in the story and in our lives, and the ongoing relevance of that humble cave in Bethlehem, that humble home in Nazareth. Scott Hahn is the bestselling Catholic author living today. His books including The Lamb's Supper, Reasons to Believe, Signs of Life and Angels and Saints.