“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. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” [LUKE 2:1-7].
Tomorrow, we will witness an incredible event. Throughout our land, strange occurrences will be observed. In both major cities and in smaller towns, streets that are normally filled with traffic and sidewalks that normally bustle with pedestrians will be empty. Drivers in any major city will not experience delays. There’ll be no jostling on the sidewalks of any of the great cities of the land. Stores that are normally filled with shoppers will be closed—no clerks will be available to serve you. Except for those engaged in emergency response of one type of another, people that are normally busy tending to all the affairs within the nation will not be working. Families with small children will be wakened earlier than any other day of the year; parents will be forced to get out of bed as the shrill voices of their children exhort them to hurry. This is the continuing impact of an event that happened almost two thousand years ago.
That “something” was the birth of a child; but it was no ordinary child. An old man seeing the child for the first time blessed the mother and then prophesied, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” [LUKE 2:34-35]. This child was born to die, but His death would accomplish far more than the death of any mere mortal.
I invite each of us sharing this Christmas Eve service to meditate on that Child’s birth. That is, after all, what Christmas is about. I want to scope in on the immediate events of that night, and how it all came to be.
NO ROOM THEN — Rome was occupied with the need to maintain peace throughout the empire. There were constant incursions along the borders as wild tribes attacked the Romans whom they saw as threatening their homelands. Additionally, there were insurrections pushed by militant peoples who had been conquered. Rome ran roughshod over these people, considering them inferior to Romans and unworthy of serious consideration. Such attitudes generated hostility toward Rome, ensuring constant unrest. Because of resentment against Rome, these insurrections broke out with alarming regularity; they were a constant threat to the empire. It cost money to maintain troops, to push the boundaries or to keep a restless populace in check.
Here is a truth that is sometimes forgotten—governments do not create wealth, citizens create wealth—governments can only seize wealth from those over whom it rules. Thus, to fund his military exploits, Augustus ordered that all within the confines of the empire were to be taxed. Unlike this day, with computers and credit cards and chequing accounts to pay for governmental demands, those living within the empire were required to travel to the city of their birth where the amount that the government assessed would be required in cash.
Thus, a young man, barely more than a boy by contemporary criteria, together with his wife to whom he was betrothed, were compelled to make the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a distance of some one hundred fifty kilometers. The young couple would have been inconvenienced, but rulers are seldom concerned for the impact of their edicts on those whom they see as “subjects.” The journey would have taken time—time that was costing the young man because he would need to pay for the trip and he would be unable to work while he was away. The journey was no doubt made more difficult by the fact that his wife was pregnant.
Powerful rulers imagine that they are doing what they want to do, seldom realising that there is a God Who rules over the world and Who overrules the world. Caesar Augustus no doubt thought that he was generating the means by which to maintain the empire, never aware that God was engineering the entire taxation event to move one family to an insignificant town just outside of Jerusalem. There, the child, conceived by the Holy Spirit, would be born.
It was necessary that the child should be born in Bethlehem, because the LORD God had sent a prophet declaring that this would be the case many years before. Micah had written:
“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days.”
[MICAH 5:2]
The child could not be born in Nazareth, though He would grow up in Nazareth so that He would be called a Nazarene [see MATTHEW 2:23]. He could not be born in Jerusalem, for though it was the capital of the nation, the child must be born in the City of David, in Bethlehem.
The circumstances, the edict of the Caesar and the necessity of travelling to the city of his birth, ensured that Joseph, together with his very pregnant fiancée, would be in the city at the time of the birth of this child. What may not have been foreseen was the lack of accommodation for the young couple. There was no place for them in the inn. There was no guest room available, for that is the meaning of the original language.
The village was crowded with people coming to be enrolled for taxation, and bureaucrats are seldom in a hurry to do their work. It takes time to collect money from people—they must be registered, checked against the records and then the money received. There would have been the usual arguments as a tax collector demanded more money and as those who were taxed questioned the amounts they were assessed—it all worked to ensure that the town would remain full of people for some time. And the teenage girl didn’t have the luxury of waiting. The baby would enter into the world on his schedule and on the young girl’s timetable. So, we read, “While they were three, the time came for her to give birth” [LUKE 2:6].
Unwelcomed in a world that was busy with the business of the empire, they found a place where they might have a little privacy—a cave in which sheep had been housed for centuries. The floor was no doubt covered in sheep dung, the cave fetid with the redolence of accumulated deposits from centuries of sheep. There was no midwife to assist in the birth, no parents to console Mary as labour pains began—just a teenage boy who couldn’t have been well-versed in the art and science of home delivery of children. It was as if God deliberately chose the humblest circumstance imaginable to bring His Son into the world.
NO ROOM NOW — There was no guest room available for the holy family on the night that Christ was born, and there seems to be no room for the Son of God today. Our failure to provide a place for the Son of God accounts for why we are forced to put one masks to hide our loneliness. We post multiple statements on Facebook declaring our self-sufficiency, but our bravado is a monstrous lie. We tell friends that we are fine when they ask how we are doing, but we are living lives of quiet desperation.
In the Apocalypse, a haunting verse is included in the missive to the Church of the Laodiceans. In that verse the Son of God is recorded as saying to those behind the door, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” [REVELATION 3:20]. The Risen Saviour seeks an invitation to come in, and though He announces His presence, but the door must be opened to permit Him to enter in.
The Son of God is not a bully; He will not force Himself on anyone. However, much as was true almost two thousand years ago, our world is busy—so busy that we haven’t time for Him. Perhaps we are not busy with the business of fulfilling government demands, but we are busy pursuing our own desires. Our happiness, our pleasure, our immediate interests are what truly matter to us, and our own desires ruthlessly demand that we pursue them, even at the expense of peace with God. Hosting the Son of God might inconvenience us, taking away time from pursuits that mean something to us. Thus, we sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the temporary. Taking time for God would mean that we would have to set aside our desires, and that would never do.
We have all heard that famous Bible verse that says, “God wants me to be happy!” Surely you remember that verse from the Book of Hesitations? Of course, there is no such verse. God never promised happiness, because happiness is impossible to hold for more than a fleeting moment. Just when we think we have what will make us happy, life intrudes and we are forced to respond to some new challenge.
Though we are not promised happiness, God does promise joy for those who receive Him by faith. Perhaps we moderns have been looking for the wrong thing, thus failing to receive the greatest gifts—peace with God, freedom from guilt, joy despite the circumstances. That which we imagine we want, we never seem to find. And that which we most need is never received.
If I was able to give you one gift that is permanent, it would be the gift of life. I’m not speaking of breathing, of eating and drinking, of merely existing; I’m speaking of that new quality of life that comes from walking with the Living God. I’m speaking of real life, what the Bible identifies as “eternal life.” This is the new quality of being that is given to each one who is born from above and into the Family of God. This new life begins with Christ and continues throughout eternity—it never ends. This life is marked by peace—serenity in the midst of the maelstrom, joy—the capacity to walk with confidence whatever the circumstance, love—the knowledge that you are accepted by God who gives life.
That new quality of life is described as arising from the presence of God’s Spirit, Who gives us, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” [GALATIANS 5:22-23]. That is my prayer for you this Christmas. Amen.
