If you were raising a king, where would you choose to live? You would probably want a nice place with a low crime rate and great schools. You might look for a great neighborhood with good kids to make friends with and clean, safe parks to play in. Mary and Joseph would have chosen the same. But God was choosing where to raise Jesus, not his earthly parents. God chose to have Mary and Joseph raise the King of the Jews in the poorest, dirtiest town. As Pastor Mark shows us today, this made it so we can relate to Jesus. Jesus doesn’t desire to keep us at a distance. He wants to invite us in to be part of his family. We are all welcome.