Advent - God Knows What He's AboutÀpẹrẹ

The Census at Bethlehem  

(If possible, view the painting, The Census of Bethlehem by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting depicts the scene in Luke 2:1-5.)

“Man proposes, but God disposes.” Rome ruled; God overruled.

Luke characteristically juxtaposed secular history with divine events. What might seem like a benign census was anything but. Through such decrees, empires wielded unrestrained control. In the best of times, benevolent emperors care for their people. In the worst of times, emperors suppress their subjects, such as Augustus, although some in his day referred to him (and other emperors) as a divine savior. The empire celebrated his birth as the beginning of good news.

In Luke 2:1-7, the beloved physician emphasized the secular setting of Jesus’ birth. Caesar Augustus ruled from Rome while Quirinius oversaw the registration of Jews in Palestine. Luke’s terse account of Jesus’ birth is fraught with overtones of subjugation. Augustus was the first of the Roman emperors who ruled over the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. That time was indeed one of peace, at least the absence of outward conflict. Conquered nations knew that to rebel was to invite Roman retribution and forcible imposition of “peace.”

Joseph and Mary were but two of the many people who were uprooted by the Pax Romana. Augustus’s edict required that Joseph register, not in his hometown of Nazareth, but in Bethlehem, some seventy miles to the south. Mary accompanied Joseph, although Luke offers no explanation why. We might speculate that Joseph did not want her to be subjected to community’s whisperings about an unwed pregnant woman. Perhaps Rome required spouses to register. What is clear is that Rome was exercising its control of its subjects.

Perhaps Joseph and Mary joined a caravan for safety as they journeyed. One can only imagine the toll that the journey took on Mary. Barbara Robinson in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever describes them this way: “They looked like the people you see on the six o’clock news—refugees, sent to wait in some strange ugly place, with all their boxes and sacks around them.” Luke’s description of their accommodations is subject to multiple interpretations, but they are cramped and crowded. The infant Jesus was laid in a feed trough, because space was limited (“there was no place for them in the inn”). Lying in the manger, according to God’s plan was Jesus, God’s promised Messiah. “Man proposes; God disposes.”

Dr. David Morgan
Adjunct Instructor, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church, Harker Heights, Texas