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So I'd like to start in an unusual place

as we talk about Christmas because there's a lot of great things in the Christmas story and

we talk about the manger and we talk about Mary and Joseph and we talk about the Magi and we talk

about all these things but there's two people in the Christmas story that oftentimes we don't talk about.

And so I want to take us to Luke, Matthew and Luke, kind of the two longest accounts of the birth of

Jesus and instead of starting where we normally start in Luke chapter two,

I'd like for us to start in Luke chapter one,

beginning in verse five.

I'm going to read a few verses for us,

and then we'll dig around and I pray that the Lord will encourage us.

This is what it says, Luke chapter 1, starting in verse 5.

In the time of Herod, King of Judea, there was a priest named Zakoriah who belonged to the

priestly division of Abizia. His wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the

sight of God observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. That's

pretty amazing. But they were childless because Elizabeth

was not able to conceive and they were both very old. Once when

Zakaria's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and to burn incense.

...