The custom of setting up a Christmas crib in one’s home—not simply outside a church—reinforces the personal challenge represented by the Incarnation. The Incarnation changes everything in human history. We become different people because of it. In Francis’s day, many thought first of Jesus dying on the cross and only later about his birth in Bethlehem. Popularizing the crib reminded people of the great love that led to Jesus’s becoming one of us without compromising his divine nature.