Where are you planning on staying? Do you have a place?

 “A Place for Us”

(Luke 2:1-7 p. 857, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, Christmas Eve, 2011)

1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town.

The Christmas story is an account of dislocation and inconvenience, a story about people being someplace where they would rather not have been, a story about events that were beyond their control. Through these surprising events, God, who reigns over all, secured a place for us.

Caesar Augustus was the emperor and Quirinius was governor of Syria. These names, places, and the event of the registration established for Luke's readers the historical context of the birth of Jesus. This was the big picture of the powers that existed then. An emperor had a plan, which became a decree that required action on the part of subordinate rulers. This meant that people had to travel to the place where their families came from. Sometimes people are forced to go from one place to another based upon the wishes of those who are more powerful than them.

4 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, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

In this case, the decree of the mighty Caesar meant that two poor people from the town of Nazareth in the region of Galilee had to make the trip to Bethlehem in Judea, despite the fact that the young woman was very pregnant. Today this would require at least 33 hours of walking, which would have been very inconvenient and potentially dangerous for Joseph, Mary, and the baby inside her. But this is what people must do when a decree comes down from above, and they have no freedom to be able to say “no.”

They went to Bethlehem because this was the city of their ancestor, King David. These two very insignificant people were descended from a very well-known figure in the history of Israel. Ten centuries earlier David had received a promise that one of his descendants would be connected with an eternal kingdom. Both Mary and Joseph were descended from David. The child in this passage, Jesus, was the One; the King of an eternal kingdom and the Son of God.

6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

Mary and Joseph were inconvenienced by the decree of Augustus. They had to go to Bethlehem, the city of David. While they were thirty-three hours away from home, the time came for Mary to give birth.

Of course, in this very significant inconvenience and even danger, they were right where they needed to be. The long-expected Son of David had to be born in Bethlehem. That is what the prophet Micah had foretold, and everyone knew that. Remember that some months later when the Magi came from the east inquiring (based on their observation of the planets and the constellations) about where the great king of the Jews would be born, Herod and his religious advisers did not say, “What are you talking about? There is no expected great king of the Jews.” They gave a clear answer: “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet.”

7 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.

Mary's son was born right where He needed to be born. The holy family's inconvenience was also according to God's express will and revealed plan. They were at the right place at the right time. But there was no place for them there. The inn was full.

A Christmas Thought...

The Christmas story is a story about a person and a place. The person was the great descendant of David, the Son of Mary, and the Son of God.

The place was “no place” in the town of Bethlehem. That was not the first place for Jesus, the Son of Mary. In mysterious fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 (“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God-with-us].”), His life began in the womb of a seemingly insignificant girl who lived in Nazareth. He bounced along in the safety of His mother's uterus for over thirty hours to get to the little town of Bethlehem. His birth there was a fulfillment of Micah 5:2: “But you, O Bethlehem … 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.”

The king at the time in Jerusalem, Herod, ordered up more “place” troubles for Joseph, Mary, and Jesus through his murderous plot against baby infants in the Bethlehem region (in fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15, “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”) But Joseph was warned to get out of there in a dream. Now they had to travel to Egypt for safe-keeping. But when they eventually left Egypt again this fulfilled another passage (Hosea 11:1): “Out of Egypt I called my Son.”

Upon their return to Israel at the death of Herod, Joseph was again warned in a dream, that he should not return to the area around Bethlehem. The family was directed back north to Galilee, the area they had come from before, avoiding the danger from Herod's son. That meant that Jesus ministry eventually began some years later, not around Bethlehem or Jerusalem, but in Galilee, fulfilling another Scripture (Isaiah 9:1-2): “In the latter time he has made glorious ... Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”

In order for all the details of “place” to be worked out, Joseph, Mary, and the baby had to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to Egypt and back to Israel, and finally to settle in Nazareth where they had started. That was a lot of inconvenience. It was a lot of being pushed around by Claudius, Herod, and Herod's son. But all that trouble was really only the beginning.

God had ordained all of those places as locations where the little baby would live. Some thirty years later the man Jesus had a divine appointment with two different places. One was Calvary, outside the gates of Jerusalem, where Jesus suffered and died as the outcast Son of God, bearing the disgrace of Israel outside the camp. The second was a nearby tomb of a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, that was only borrowed for a short time, because Jesus did not need it for very long. This also fulfilled Isaiah 53:8-9, “By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”

One other place should be mentioned. For your eternal comfort, Jesus went through all this disruption, inconvenience, pain, and even death, in order to secure a place for you. That place is called heaven. When he came to Bethlehem, there was no place for Him, but there is a place for you. That's why He told His disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” We have a place. This brings us a great comfort, especially during our moments of temporary dislocation here below, a comfort that only Messiah can bring.