I’m sure that all of us have experienced using a microscope, whether it was middle school, high school, or college. You lean down onto the eye piece and look through the ocular lense. Without zooming in, you see a blurry picture of perhaps the entire specimen. Once you zoom in, things become more clear, and also your astonishment at God’s creation increases.

I’ve found it helpful to view the account of Christ’s first advent, as found in the Gospel accounts, as if I were looking through a telescope. Broadly, there certainly are beautiful things to see. However, if we narrow our focus, we can see particular aspects of the work of Christ, just as we would be able to see cellular structures under a microscope.