Because of Bethlehem<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hollywood would recast the Christmas story. Joseph\u2019s collar is way too blue. Mary is green from inexperience. The couple\u2019s star power doesn\u2019t match the bill. Too obscure, too simple. The story warrants some headliners. And what about the shepherds? Do they sing? A good public relations firm would move the birth to a big city. The Son of God deserves a royal entry. Less peasant, more pizazz.<\/p>\n
But we didn\u2019t design the hour. God did. And God was content to enter the world in the presence of sleepy sheep and a wide-eyed carpenter. No spotlights, just candlelight. No crowns, just cows chewing cud. If God was willing to wrap himself in rags, then all questions about his love for you are off the table. When Christ was born, so was our hope. That\u2019s why I love Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38552,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38548\/revisions\/38552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251218_1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Because](\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/meips\/ADKq_Nacdpqkovykp3qmKY48--a1853N9-3mNYosk0oal5UdQh_LKwpx-f5cIslljmbQfSYRYw9LlQkVFYT-RW3ieJ1p7a18zKqPCmIqd63Vs_Gp=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/maxlucado.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bob-1-197x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n