The Christmas story is a parable.
The meaning is that important information is out there, and we need to pay attention to the signs and signals, and look for that important information.
And when we find that important information, we need to take it seriously.
Copernicus and Galileo had important information.
Darwin and Pavlov had important information.
Tobacco is addictive and deadly.
Global warming is real and we humans caused it.
A sustainable human civilization can only have so many humans participating in it. Too many is simply too many.
This is important information.
But there is a theme that is key to accepting the important information, the key to finding the truth.
The key is to look at the idea that has only clear evidence to back it up.
The key is to notice when some group wants to back an idea.
Any idea that needs a group to support it is probably just plain wrong.
That is the true meaning of the many parables of the new testament.
The fictional Jesus ultimately has no group or organization to back him up. He, as a metaphor for the truth itself, is simply true because the evidence bears it out.
For this reason, we should all completely refute and abandon all religions, or organized philosophical groups, such as the Buddhists. There is no special organization to promote the truth about the Earth spinning, rather than not spinning, and the whole universe revolving around the Earth.
So, the baby Jesus is the truth, in any form, coming out of some source, with signs that we may go and look for it. We are all the shepherds, it is always night, and we are always looking for the light to guide us.
The very strange thing about the Christian religion is that in its early years, by being a religion that could get a person killed, it had some symbolic connection to the true meaning of the parables of the Bible, in that it had no organization with any power to support it, just its members, with no power.
Now the Christian religion has the most power of any religion, and has had for centuries.
So, now, we must look for the truth outside the Christian religion, as most of you know.
The truth has a way of standing on its own, without any organization with any power to support it.
It is a theme that is not simple and clear in all its examples, and I may have failed to make it clear, but if you understand the pattern, of the truth not getting a high status, no room at the inn, yet the shepherds and those who are wise, will seek out the truth, with little help from the powerful.
May you find your Christ child, may we all find the truth, as we need it, day by day.