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The Christmas story is often treated as gentle and sentimental, but it emerges from a world marked by occupation, fear, and deep injustice. When Mary, Joseph, and Bethlehem are understood within the harsh realities of the Roman Empire, Matthew 1:18-25 reveals how power and exploitation shaped their lives and continue to shape our own world through violence, exclusion, and systemic harm, especially toward those pushed to the margins. Yet the story does not end there. It offers courage and hope, inviting people of faith to confront what is unloving, stand alongside those who suffer, and live into the transforming power of love.