There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should
be enrolled,…and all went to be registered, every one into his own city.
[Lk 2: 1,3]
It’s a story about a census, the most well-known story about a census in the world - perhaps the only one.
Well there is one other I can think of. Emily Wilding Davison spent the night off 1st April 1911 locked in a broom cupboard. Now, why? Davison was prominent among the Suffragettes, campaigning for the right of women to vote in elections, but also - and this is often forgotten - to sit as Members of Parliament. She resisted, that is, the usual prejudice of the time, which was to the effect that no women should be allowed in the House of Commons. And so she spent that night, the night before the census day, having locked herself in that broom cupboard in the Palace of Westminster, in order to be able honestly to give her address on the census form as “House of Commons”.
And this joke became one of the great publicity feats of her cause - which is why we still remember it. It’s not a laugh-out-loud kind of a joke, but the more we ponder it the more it excites our admiration, for the wit of the woman who played it, and for the subtle, even the paradoxical way in which its very pointlessness lends weight to her passionately-held point.
And so we turn to our Bibles, and to our story, and we find that God, too, has been playing a cosmic joke upon the world of men; a joke which Luke has seen even as he begins to tell it.
It’s a story about a census. Caesar Augustus wants to tax all the inhabitants of his empire. Now we ought to pause and see that although “Caesar Augustus” is the name of an particular emperor (the great-nephew of Julius Caesar, and also known to us as Octavian) this way of describing him is significant. Because “Caesar Augustus” means literally “the great emperor”, a fitting title for the ruler of the whole known world.
And he wants to tax the whole world, and as a first step there is to be a census. And the organising principle of the census is to be that every one is to go to “his own city” to be enrolled, to the place, that is, where his paternal ancestors came from. Accordingly, Luke says, Joseph went to Bethlehem, the city of David, because he was descended through his father from David.
And I wonder if you can see the joke coming. Joseph, with his family, having quite properly obeyed the decree, arrive in Bethlehem, and Jesus is born. He is born, in all likelihood, on the first night of their arrival, the night when they have to find their accommodation, because, as we know, they have are still in that inadequate accommodation when he arrives.
Jesus is born into the world, then, in time to be enrolled, himself included in this census, the organising principle of which is, as we remember, the identity of one’s father. And I think you begin to see the problem, and the joke.
Because as both Joseph and Mary are well aware, one of the unique things about the new baby is that he hasn’t really got a father; not, at any rate, one whose name could sensibly appear on the census return. So what can Joseph and Mary honestly say to the census-taker?
The decree went out that all the world should be enrolled, but here is a child whose identity must inevitably elude the grand plan devised by the great emperor. And it’s another joke, not of a laugh-out-loud kind, but we still remember it, and it’s name is the Virgin Birth.
And the point of it may be this; that Jesus, even on the first day of his life on earth, has already made impossible the fulfilment of the plans of Caesar Augustus, or, to put it in Jesus’ own terms, the kingdom of this world is overcome by the kingdom of God. No power, no courage and no army had before been able to frustrate the designs of Rome, yet God frustrates it using this weakest instrument: a new-born baby. Caesar is defeated, and God’s is the victory.
And you will say that this defeat is trivial, a mere administrative hiccough which passes all but unnoticed, and so it is - it is pointless in its way as Miss Davison’s new address. But like her protest it is a sign; a sign that this child is the real ruler of heaven and earth, who is not to be bound by others’ decrees. The one who is king of Kings and lord of Lords will not be controlled by the rulers of this world, no, not for one day.
And not only does Jesus, only hours old, make laughable the claim to register, and therefore to control, the whole world; he makes at the same time his own counter-claim, and sends out his own decree.
While everyone else is going to their fathers’ houses, Jesus has, in fact, come down from his Father, and from that heaven which he later describes, explicitly, to his disciples as “my Father’s house”. [Jn 14:2] The king of the world commands him to go to his father’s home town; but he has come from his Father’s city, and come down to ours.
And what is the purpose of the decree? That the world might be enrolled, and be taxed. So that Caesar may be able to control his people, they are to be recorded; and because Caesar claims to rule the whole world, the whole world is to be enrolled. But here is a child who not only cannot be properly registered himself, but he is making his own rival register. In his census are recorded, not those who go in obedience to Caesar’s decree, but those who come to Him out of love for God and his kingdom, who worship and adore him, who listen to him and are taught by him.
And if you ask, Where is this census? I say to you, here it is - the first pages of it, anyway. Luke is the census-taker, and he enrolls Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men, and the disciples, and Luke himself, and the three thousand converts of the Day of Pentecost whom Luke records in the book of Acts, and the hundred and forty-four thousand whom St John sees in his vision.
[Rev 14:1]
And significantly, what is it that those thousands are having done for them in St John’s vision in the book of Revelation? They are having their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. [Rev. 13:8] And countless others down the ages have also, and so have you and I tonight, when we entered those doors, when we decided that we, too, would come to Jesus, and offer him our praise and our love.
Offer him - the world goes to be enrolled, and to be taxed. But there is no taxation in the kingdom of God. Is it, then, a haven for the rich? Hardly - for there will we freely give all that we have, as the gifts of the shepherds and the wise men freely were given, an offering out of love to the infant King.
But why are we taxed by kingdoms of this world? It is after all a simple and a reasonable bargain. Give my your obedience, and your taxes, says the Caesar Augustus, and I will protect you: protect you from crime and disorder, protect you from fear and from want, and protect you from those barbarians who would break in and destroy our civilisation. And in return for your taxes, and your obediences, you will have peace. For the kings of the earth promise to bring peace, and rightly, for their authority is given to them that they might establish peace; but what they have delivered is still war.
Then why are we enrolled with Jesus? Why do we offer him gifts, worship, adore and learn of him? He does not even promise peace. I have not come to bring peace, he says [Mt 10:34], but a sword.
This is his promise: war for the hearts and minds of men and women, the fight for the cause of righteousness: I am come, he says [Mt 10:35], to set a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother. He promises war in the heart of everyone who follows him, unremitting war against those parts of our selves which destroy our humanity and keep us from the Father. He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
[Mt 10:38]
Why, then, do we obey his decree, more terrible than any demand for taxation? We follow because this Jesus, promiser of conflict, is nonetheless the one who delivers peace at the last.
This Jesus is the child who, in his first weakling hour of life, defied the Caesar, making a mockery of his power; the child, who, in his helplessness in that manger, received the worship that no emperor can command. Because this Jesus is the Son of the Father, by whom all things were made; the image of the Father, the only ruler of princes; the Word of the Father, God’s living decree that the world should be enrolled, and be saved.
For he is one with the Father, safe in the Father’s care, and those who are committed to following him where he goes will follow him at the last to his own city the Father’s house. This night he scorns the purposes of the kingdom of this world; and it can never have any power over him. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. [Jn 1:5]
And therefore, unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. [Jude 24-25]
