All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. (Luke 2:3)
The world is filled with government regulations. It seems that when most modern people mention those words, they don’t say them with love and respect and thankfulness. They almost have a negative physical reaction. Just name them: regulations about housing, taxes, salary, automobiles, airplane travel, health care, retirement, voting laws, gun registration. I could probably sit here till noon and think of a few hundred without even doing any research.
When we think of these government regulations we probably think of control, which at times leads to interference and lack of freedom. But these regulations are actually in place to help us. To make us safer. To protect our democracy and way of life. To help the government do its job.
Because they are so pervasive in societies, and have been from time immemorial, it shouldn’t strike me as odd that the birthplace of the most important person ever born was due to a government regulation. Actually, the government regulation that I’m referring to was the decree that went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world that was under Roman authority should be registered in a “global census”, accomplished by everyone returning to their “home town” to be registered. And that government regulation provided the fulfillment of Micah’s prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Joseph was the descendant of King David, and he thus needed to return to his ancestral home…and he took with him his fiancé who by this time, Luke says, was “showing”, as commonly said in English, as she was an obviously pregnant woman.
Unlike the modern-day census in America, in which people handle the census forms by mail, or a census worker will come and personally visit a household, the people of Jesus’ day had to report to a certain place in order to be counted. There was a lot of personal effort involved—time away from wherever they currently lived, time away from their occupations and agricultural fields, and attention to operational details for organizing a trip to their own home town. When we think of the whole empire doing this, it was no small task. The compliance with the government regulation was an extraordinary undertaking for its citizenry.
God used an array of different means to activate the birth of our Savior. He even used a government regulation as an important part of his divine and eternal plan.
“Father, thank you for all the pieces of the Christmas story, including how a government census was part of your unfolding plan for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem.”
Freddy Boswell 