Today marks something
special...we are done Luke 1!! Today we begin on Luke chapter 2! This is the
biblical part of the Christmas story that most people are familiar with (and a good chunk of people
likely have memorised). Today we are going to look at Luke 2:1-7
In those days Caesar Augustus
issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census
that took place while[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own
town to register.(Luke 2:1-2)
First a little bit about
Cesar Augustus. We don't know a whole lot about him from the bible, but because
he was a very prominent Roman official, there are other historical records we
can glean from, to give us a better idea of what the time period was like under
his reign! (I’ll post some links at the bottom so you can see my sources)
Caesar Augustus was actually adopted. He is the grandnephew of Julius Caesar
and his real name was Gaius Octavius. His grand-uncle adopted him, and he took
on the name Caesar at that time. When he
came to power, he changed his name to Caesar Augustus. “Caesar” was a name that
was equivalent to “emperor” because of the power associated with the family
line. And Augustus means “worthy of
reverence”... which implies a lot about what ol’ Gaius thought of himself, and
what he demanded of the people! He was an Emperor worthy of reverence.
Surprisingly, from what we can glean, the rule under Caesar
Augustus was rather peaceful! In fact, much like today, only in a more
spiritual way (it would have been very foolish for someone to believe in NO
deity at all back then, unlike today). Augustus was incredibly “into religion”
, because many Greeks had fallen away from the traditional Greco-Roman
pantheon. His reign was the rise of philosophical skepticism. Augustus on the other
hand, firmly believed in his Greek Gods, and made it his mission to have his
people do likewise. His view was that Rome came to power because of their Gods.
So Augustus took on the task of restoring many many countless temples in his
dominion. One such temple that was restored was the Jewish temple (believe it
or not!). (This is rather pivotal prophetically for Christ since the temple had
been destroyed, despite many prophecy’s saying that the messiah would enter
through the temple.). But a funny little fact about Augustus, is that he had a
pretty big ego (which we know from his name) and EVERY BRICK that was used to
build every temple, had his crest engraved in the corner... So like... have you
ever seen our house lately, with all of it’s “typar” wrap? Ya... that’s roughly
what the “beautifully restored” temple would have looked like... NIKE check
marks everywhere! Kinda funny...
So basically, under Caesar, life was a lot like today. People
could worship whomever and whatever they pleased and this was socially
acceptable. Advocating for minority religious groups was trendy like it is
today, and religious matters were expected to be handled by their respective
religious communities (in this they had a bit more power than today in
religious communities, as we can see at Jesus’s trial). I thought this would be interesting to point
out, given that we feel Jesus came to such a very different time-period than
today, that it can be difficult to relate to his style of ministry... actually,
it was A LOT like today...
The other piece of history that really changes how we view this
part of the story, is that the Roman provinces did a census every fourteen
years! There were three major rome-wide censuses (of which this, was one) that
Augustus decreed (he was so proud of these three censuses, that they are
recorded on his tomb stone!), but the truth is, this third and final census
that he decreed nation-wide, still fell within the 14 year time-span of
recorded censuses. We know this because Luke records a further provincial
census fourteen years later in the book of Acts... So... for all intensive
purposes, we might want to look at Joseph and say “what the heck dude!? Why so
last-minute here!?”... If I were an 8-9 month pregnant Mary, I wouldn’t be so
excited...
We will dwell further on this second passage tomorrow, but for today lets stick to the topic at hand. The fact is, every 14 years, there was a census. The fact that every hotel was booked right up when Mary and Joseph arrived means other people knew about it and did their traveling at an earlier time so they would be prepared. The truth is Joseph and Mary waited until the last minute, and didn’t get a room!
The other fact is, God knew about this census as well... And he knew that this would affect exactly how his son came into the world. Maybe this was actually part of his plan for Mary! After all, she was very young, and hadn’t even had sexual relations, never mind pushing out a baby! Perhaps God used this to bring her a less damaging birth. Maybe Mary was only 8 months along when they left, and the lovely bouncing of the donkey ride is what set her into labour (no one who has been pregnant would deny this theory!!). Maybe this way she could have a smaller child to birth and God would allow her body quicker healing for their next last-minute flight to Egypt (which we read in Matthew).
These are all speculations, but do you see how a little bit of research can bring a whole new context to something you have read a hundred times or more? It’s rather incredible how God works sometimes.
I can only imagine the faith Mary must have had in those moments. The moments of procrastinating going for the census... “God, I trust you. I know you have a plan here...” and then that Donkey ride when contractions started “Lord, take care of your son!”... and then when there was no room ANYWHERE and her son was to be born in a stable “God I know you will protect your son from disease, even though he was born and is internally exposed (placenta, people!) to animal dung”...Talk about faith amidst worries! Heck! When my son Josiah was born, we weren’t allowed ANY visitors (not even my doula could come) because of the bad flu strains going around that winter... never mind a completely un-sterile environment to give birth in and to bring a fragile (possibly preemie) baby into the world...
Today was mostly about setting up a scene for the story of Christ’s birth. Giving you an idea of what life was like, and allowing us to relate better to the time period! But there is also a message of trust and hope within this story as we can see. The truth is that God knew it all, and orchestrated every moment purposefully. And do you believe that he does the same for you? Do you believe that you are His child and that he orchestrates every moment of your life too? Many people who have adopted or have been adopted would agree that they are 100% a child of their parents (and Caesar Augustus would agree I think). God has adopted us as children. We know this because it is in his Word. And so we know that God cares about every single moment of our lives. He knows every event that will happen to us, and he miraculously can use each event to better us, and his kingdom. We do not always agree, and we do not like painful lessons, but God is good, and does all things for His glory and our benefit.
Today, I am going to take some time to renew my trust in God. I will take some time to figure out where my heart is at, and bring myself to a place where i can really say “Okay God, I am trusting you here” as I imagine Mary was doing in those moments. I need to do this and strengthen myself this way because I have proved very weak in this area in the past, when life has gotten extremely hard for me. I tend to blame God and run, instead of trusting Him and hiding myself within His grace and will. My encouragement to you today is that you do likewise, and take some time to renew your Trust in the Lord’s sovereignty and will within your life, even in the difficult stuff...
Dear God, we lift up our plans to you today Lord. This is something that is difficult and we know we may stumble in this many times yet before we have fully surrendered our will to yours... But God, we want to start now. Please soften our hearts, and open our eyes to see what areas of our lives we are not trusting you with. God please help us lift those areas up to you. You are a great God and we know you can do so much better with our lives than we can. Please help us Lord, to trust in you.
In Jesus Name,
Amen
Sources:
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