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.
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