Advent - Day 5

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. (Luke 2:1-5 ESV).

I love to watch the plan of God unfold. This is especially true of the prophecies of the birth of Jesus. Our reading today gives us the detail of how God ordained the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem where the Messiah was prophesied to be born (cf. Micah 5:2). He so ordained things that when the time came, the Messiah’s mother and legal father were living not in Bethlehem but in Nazareth; and that in order to fulfill his word and bring these two relatively unknown young people to Bethlehem, “the city of bread.” God arranges every detail so that Caesar Augustus decrees that all the Roman world should be enrolled each in his town of birth. It was a decree for the entire world in order to move two people seventy miles! Have you ever felt small and insignificant in this great world of ours? There are some seven billion people in our world. I often feel so small in comparison that it becomes a bit discouraging. The news is about big political and economic and social movements and outstanding people with global significance and lots of power and prestige which only serves to make me feel more insignificant. It is easy to become disheartened or unhappy. However, I am shaken from that discouragement when I remember that all the mammoth political forces and all the giant industrial complexes, without their even knowing it, are being guided by God, not for their own sake, but for the sake of God’s purpose in bringing good to his people. God wields an empire to fulfill his word and bless his children. Do not think, because you experience adversity in your world of experience, that the hand of the Lord is shortened. It is not our prosperity or our fame but our holiness that he seeks with all his heart. This is how he receives the glory so due him. So, to that end, he rules the whole world. The wisdom of Solomon recalls for us: “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:11). And he is always turning it for his saving and sanctifying and eternal purposes among his people. He is a big God for little people, and we have great cause to rejoice that all the kings and presidents and premiers and chancellors and chiefs of the world follow the sovereign decrees of our Father in heaven. He is working His glory on our behalf in all things.