Try this thought experiment. What moments in your life do you consider pivotal? Maybe it’s a big trip, grad school graduation, or the birth of a child.

Now, imagine yourself taking ten minutes to write from memory what happened, how you felt, and who said what. Next, imagine someone else who was with you writing down what they saw, how they felt, and who said what.

Can you imagine the differences? One story feels intimate, the other distant. One story catches a mortifying detail, the other only fondness. One stirs sadness, and the other stays upbeat. There are so many angles to the same story. It’s true in life, and it’s true in the scriptures.

This Advent, we go back to the moments just before Jesus was born. We trace tragedy in a genealogy. We find comedy in Joseph's confusion. We see fairytale in Elizabeth’s late-in-life pregnancy. We stumble through mystery as Mary gets the news of a baby soon born to change the world.