Luke 2:1 (ESV)
In those days a decree went out
from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
Joseph and Mary are in Galilee.
Prophecy has the child Jesus, Messiah, being born in Bethlehem, but I doubt
that has even occurred to them. Would they have made the trek to Bethlehem had
not Caesar ordered it so? It is unlikely. It was a journey of about 90 miles to
travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That doesn’t sound like much. I can drive
that in an hour and a half. But they would have been walking and she was very
pregnant. Some suggest that it was a four-day trek, but that would be pushing
it with a woman at full term. It was likely a week’s journey for them.
Had it not been for the Roman
emperor’s tax registration requirement, the scriptures would not have been
fulfilled. Yet in the following verses Mary gives birth in Bethlehem, wrapping
her child in swaddling cloths and lying him in a manger, fulfilling Old
Testament prophecy. God has a way of using people and events to accomplish his
purpose and they are not even aware of it. I’m sure it never occurred to Caesar
that he was a pawn in God’s hands.
As we approach the day when we
celebrate the birth of our savior, we are also living in anxious times. School
shootings, uncertainty about the future under a new president, new pandemics on
the horizon, war in the Middle East and in Europe, governments so far in debt
that they can’t even pay the interest, unrest on almost every continent. . . The
list is almost endless. As believers, we must never forget that the God who can
manipulate a pagan emperor to do his will can do anything.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s
poem, Christmas Bells ends with these words:
And in despair I
bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the
bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."
The poem was written during the
Civil War of the United States. It is worth reading the whole poem. It speaks
loudly to faith in the midst of anxious times. You can find it here: https://poets.org/poem/christmas-bells.
May God’s peace rest on you this Christmas season.
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