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When God breaks into human history, all the details of the story are important. In the details, he’s trying to tell us something. Here’s one significant “detail” that merits our attention during Advent: When God sent us a Savior, he sent him by way of a family—the Holy Family of Nazareth.
God could have chosen another way. Maybe Jesus could have blazed to earth like some superhero from another planet, or just shown up as a mysterious stranger. But the fact is that the Father entrusted his Son to human parents, Mary and Joseph.
What can we learn from the fact that Jesus had an earthly family? What does it mean for parents and children today? And is there anything about the Holy Family’s home life that we can imitate?
An obvious way to approach these questions this Advent is to take a closer look at the family that Jesus grew up in. What was it like, in God’s own family home?
It’s hard to say, at first glance. Though two of the gospels—Matthew and Luke—describe the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, Scripture offers only one anecdote about his…
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