The featured image is where, according to legend, the Baby Jesus was laid after He was born, His first day as a human, as one of us. . 

The featured image is where Mary is said to have laid when she gave birth to Jesus.

Needless to say, what is now an incredible church (if maybe a little over the top) is vastly different then what it was on the first night. A stable, actually almost a cave, with animals, no doubt dirtier than we would even keep  a stable today. A very humble place, where Jesus was born. He who gave up the glory of heaven to live life as a human.

Best wishes for a Blessed Christmas, remembering that it really is about God being with us in our lives on earth. That is certainly something to celebrate, and we should, but while we have so much and we celebrate amid all the lights and warmth of modern life, the Baby was born in the dark and the cold. “…the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God…” (John 3: 19-21 ESV). We have all done evil, but Jesus came into the world, that new Baby so that we may come into the Light and it started here in Bethlehem, so that we could come into the Light and know peace with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.