• It cost Mary and Joseph the comforts of home during a long period of exile in Egypt to protect the little babe.
• It cost mothers, in and around Bethlehem, the massacre of their babies by the cruel order of Herod.
• It cost the shepherds the complacency of their shepherd’s life, with the call to the manger and to tell the good news.
• It cost the wise men a long journey and expensive gifts and changed lives.
• It cost the early Apostles and the early church persecution and sometimes death.
• It cost missionaries of Christ untold suffering and privation to spread the Good News.
• It cost Christian martyrs in all ages their lives for Christ’s sake.
• More than all this, it cost God the Father His own Son—He sent Him to the earth to save men.
• It cost Jesus a life of sacrifice and service, a death cruel and unmatched in history.

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