and yet he eventually accepted the miracle, but at first he thought it was a mess, that this was god coming into the world, and it was coming in god s way, not the human way. but more than that, if you look at the story in matthew, there is a king named herrod sitting on the throne in the area where jesus was born, this king heard rumors there was a child king, a child messiah to be born and he set out on a process of destroying this child for as he thought he was a rival to the throne and the bible says he killed hebrew jewish baby boys in a mad genocidal attempt. jesus was born in the midst of a human mess, of the powers of the world, seeking to thwart the way of god s love and god s light in the world and jesus was born anyway. that gives me hope. that s where our faith is grounded. not just in the happy stuff. but grounded in the reality that we have got a god who knows how to deal with trouble, and knows how to take a mess and working