Celebrating Christmas this year is, for many, a lesson in disappointment and discouragement. The pandemic has robbed us of gatherings and traditions that bring comfort to the season. It is all very disorienting. Joseph and Mary experienced this kind of disorientation too. Caused by a census rather than a pandemic, the effect was no less jarring. Then God entered the scene and reoriented them to the new thing God was doing. Perhaps it is so with us.