This post was attempted one before, but in the spirit of Christmas, I thought I'd give it another shot.
Imagine if the Christmas Story took place today. A young schoolgirl, say somewhere between 14 and 16 years old, gets a vist from an Angel. She's told she will give birth to a baby who will be the savior of the world.
The part about little Mary being betrothed just doesn't happen in America, so we can't make that parallel. And her husband-to-be can't marry her, because if he happens to be an adult, well, that just isn't done either. So I can't figure out how to bring Joseph into the picture.
Absolutely nobody will believe her. They'll just toss it off as a young girl whose boyfriend got her pregnant. Only problem is that she doesn't have a boyfriend, and nobody has any clue about the identity of the middle-schooler (or maybe high schooler?) that got her pregnant.
There's also no such thing in America as going to your family's original hometown to register for a census. So if she travels somewhere right before giving birth, it would have to be for some other reason. But being forced to have the baby in a barn isn't completely impossible, although it's much more likely that she would show up in some hospital emergency room and have the child there under the care of professional medical personnel.
How about the star? A bright star appears in the sky and seems to move until it stops directly above the hospital (or barn if you prefer) where the birth takes place. The star might be explained as a comet, which of course the scientific community would immediately tell everyone was an ordinary comet on its ordinary orbit through the solar system. Means nothing. The fact it happens to stay directly over the place where a girl who claims a virgin birth is just silly superstition.
The Catholic Church will not even bother to investigate, and the rest of the Christian Community will reject the entire story to avoid being taunted as ignorant boobs for believing the little girl.
But there will be a small group of folks who will get wind of the story and believe the little girl. They will gather at the birthplace, trying to see the little girl and her baby. But most likely they'll be turned away by riot police sent there by an alarmed government that fears these religious radicals.
The news media will make a point to ignore the story entirely, telling themselves that it's best not to inflame those radical Christians by even mentioning it.
But God will know what he's doing. People will find out anyway, and will appear from around the globe to pay homage and pray together. The little miracle child will build a following regardless of government efforts to stamp out the movement from the start. But the real transformation of the world will have to wait until the child comes of age and begins spreading his message to the people.
Merry Christmas.
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