Luke 1:5   In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.

  

      

There are people who criticise the Bible and say it is all made up, i.e. man made. They obviously don't read the Bible! This isn't a fairy tale, this is history (in the time of Herod), geographically based (of Judea), set in a particular culture (that had priests and a priestly division), which has a history of its own (a descendant of Aaron). This is time-space history. If we could time-travel, you could go back and see this actually happening.

 

Some people want the Bible to be all-spiritual and they struggle with the humanity within it. The Bible is all about God but it's also all about people. God is concerned about people. He hasn't just made this world and then stood at a distance. No, He comes and interacts with people.

The interaction we are about to see involves a man named Zechariah and his wife named Elizabeth. They are ordinary, good people. He happens to be a priest which was simply someone of a particular family within a particular tribe in Israel whose job it was to serve in the Temple in Jerusalem. Beyond that there is nothing special about him.

 

You see this is the point: Christmas involves ordinary people. The Christmas story is all about ordinary people encountering an extraordinary God. It is about Him bringing His Son to these ordinary people.