The Story Of The Nativity
Based on the Gospels of Luke and Matthew
Using all the bits which are usually left out, and leaving out all the bits which are usually left in.
In Bethlehem there once was an unmarried couple, Mary and Joseph, who didn’t even live together. Joseph is visited by an un-named angel who tells him, regarding Mary, to ‘take her as a wife’ (in other words to have sex with her) and have a son who will be called Jesus. This he does, getting Mary pregnant. They then get married.
Not long after, Mary visits a friend called Elizabeth who was technically unable to have children but who now finds herself to be miraculously pregnant. This sort of thing happens quite often in the New Testament, it seems. It’s Elizabeth who declares that Mary is now the ‘mother of the Lord’.
Mary and Joseph move in together, and not much happens until Mary gives birth, not in a manger, but at home. King Herod has been dead for a while and the Romans don’t interfere in Judean life very much, so things are pretty quiet. No-one turns up with gifts and there are no unusual astronomical phenomena to speak of.
About a month or so later, Mary and Joseph take the Christ child to the Temple of Jerusalem to have part of his dick chopped off. He bleeds quite badly (thus beginning the redemption of man). They then sacrifice some pigeons on his behalf and chat with an old bloke called Simeon and an old lady called Anna who declare the blood-soaked infant as the saviour of the nation of Jerusalem.
Joseph is then visited by another angel in a dream, telling him to take his newborn son to Israel. Joseph decides to ignore this and they choose to settle in Nazareth instead.
Second greatest story ever told!
