The Two Millenium Miracle

What do you believe about Christmas? At this time of year, billions of people on the planet are celebrating the birth of a baby that happened over two milleniums ago in a small town in what we know today as the Middle East.

Have you ever stopped to ask a simple question, one that would appear to be logical? That question would be, why?

Let's take a trip back in time. We'll make it a reality trip, one that journeys into the real world of those days and a few more over the ensuing centuries. Starting in first century Bethlehem in Judea, we find it dry and hot. No one exchanged Christmas cards. There were no trees being decorated. No one wore a crucifix around their neck.

Depending on whatever you choose to believe, on one mostly quiet night a teenage girl gave birth in a room, or a cave, or a barn, or a stable. Her child was a son, and she and her older carpenter fiancee would eventually take this child home with them to Nazareth and raise him through boyhood and adolescence into early manhood.

The Nativity Story

On December 1st, 2006, one of the most underrated Christmas movies of all-time was released, and if you have never had a chance or made the time to watch "The Nativity Story" you should make this the year. I've noticed that it is playing a few times in the coming days.

The movie features a starring performance by Keisha Castle-Hughes, the young Australian actress who was just 16 years old at the time of filming.

She delivers a commanding yet understated performance as Mary, the mother of Jesus, in a manner that anyone familiar with her story would find credible.

Guatemalan actor Oscar Isaac takes on the hurt skeptic-turned strong and loyal supporting partner Joseph role well here.

The strongest male acting performance is turned in by Irish actor Ciaran Hinds, familiar to many from his starring role as Caesar in the HBO epic series 'Rome'. Hinds gives perhaps the finest performance of Herod to ever grace the silver screen.

Brought to life here by 'Twilight' director Catherine Hardwicke, 'The Nativity Story' is, as always, all about the story itself.

As one of the film's taglines tells it, the story is about "a message foretold in the heavens...a prophecy that would threaten an empire...a miracle that would change the world."

There is nothing overly dramatic about that tagline. It is the simple truth.

No matter what your view in your own life towards Christianity in particular or religion in general, there is no valid way to argue the fact that the life and death of Jesus Christ and the message that he delivered has changed and shaped the entire world over the ensuing two millenia.

This film and the whole of the Nativity story covers that period in the life of Mary and Joseph from the time of their engagement on through to the birth of their child.